ERCOT Says Texas Electric Generators Ready For Winter Weather Following On-Site Winterization Inspections
AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - The Electric Reliability Council of Texas announced Thursday, Dec. 30 it has completed on-site inspections of mandatory winterization efforts and the news is good.
ERCOT said inspection results show the independently-owned electric generation fleet and electric transmission companies serving the region are ready for winter weather.
Inspections were completed at more than 300 electric generation units, representing 85% of the megawatt hours lost during Winter Storm Uri due to outages at 22 transmission station facilities in February.
ERCOT has filed a preliminary summary inspection report with the Public Utility Commission and said it will submit its final inspection report on Jan. 18, 2022 for review and any potential enforcement action.
Earlier this year the Texas Legislature increased the maximum penalties for violating weatherization rules to $1,000,000 per day, per violation.
"Texans can be confident the electric generation fleet and the grid are winterized and ready to provide power," said Woody Rickerson, Vice President of Grid Planning and Weatherization. "New regulations require all electric generation and transmission owners to make significant winterization improvements and our inspections confirm they are prepared."
Of the 302 generation resources inspected, ERCOT said some generators exceeded PUC winterization requirements.
Ten generation resources inspected had items identified on the day of inspection requiring correction.
For example, a generation unit may have needed a windscreen to be compliant, but it was not yet installed on the day of inspection.
Many items have now been completed since the inspection occurred and all ten units are still operational.
The ten generation units have a total capacity of 2,129 megawatts, representing about 1.7% of the total ERCOT generation fleet.
Of the 22 transmission station facilities inspected, ERCOT found that six had potential identified deficiencies, most of which have already been corrected.
These were generally minor items, such as cabinet heaters out of service or missing weather stripping on cabinet doors on the day of inspection. Most of these items have been corrected, ERCOT said.
ERCOT said it will conduct follow-up inspections on the generation and transmission facilities with potential identified issues.
