Texas' electrical blackouts come from isolated, unprepared grid amidst winter blast

Record ID: 1602050

  • Title: Texas' electrical blackouts come from isolated, unprepared grid amidst winter blast
  • Date: 18th February 2021
  • Summary: AUSTIN, TEXAS USA (FEBRUARY 18, 2021) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SERGIO CASTELLANOS, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN CIVIL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR, SAYING: "Texas is basically an isolated grid. There's something unique about the Texas grid…(white flash) "That has had its pros and cons. There is less federal bureaucracy which has accelerated deployment and creat
  • Embargoed: 4th March 2021 23:08
  • Keywords: blackout electricity power outage snow texas winter storm
  • Location: AUSTIN, TEXAS USA; EL PASO, TEXAS USA; SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS USA; WACO, TEXAS USA; DALLAS, TEXAS USA
  • City: AUSTIN, TEXAS USA; EL PASO, TEXAS USA; SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS USA; WACO, TEXAS USA; DALLAS, TEXAS USA
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Environment,United States,Weather
  • Reuters ID: LVA006E069K5J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The Texas electrical grid, uniquely isolated in the United States, has failed after a winter blast knocked out generators and drove people to shelter at home.
    "When temperatures drop people turn their heating equipment on and demand goes up. Now in this case temperatures dropped significantly, to an extreme, So demand also increased to an extreme," said Professor Sergio Castellanos, who teaches civil engineering at the University of Texas.
    The winter blast is something the state had been warned about in the past, Castellanos said, but was not ready for another strong chill. Castellanos believes these strong winters will only come more often.
    "These extreme events are happening more frequently and we be sure that they will continue to happen in he future and we will see them more frequently as our climate crisis exacerbates," Castellanos said.
    Not all of Texas was knocked out by the winter blast. El Paso, a desert city in the far west tip of the state, had winterized their grid after past failures.
    "Ten years ago here in the El Paso area El Paso learned a lot of best practices and lessons from the freeze of 2011 in our region. One of the two major areas was making sure that our instruments, equipment, and power facilities were able to sustain extreme cold weather. That is to say, anything in -10 F for a sustained period of time," said Eddie Gutierrez, from El Paso Electric.
    Castellanos said the path forward is to winterize the entire Texas grid, and extreme weather, both hot and cold, will be testing power generation in the years to come. The problem will not only be if the lights are on.
    "These issues, however, will continue to occur. The important thing to note about this is that they go beyond the electrical need and impact things such as water, we woke up this morning with a boiling water notice for the city of Austin, so this implies that we might have cholera cases on top of carbon monoxide intoxications, on top of the COVID pandemic that we're already immersed in."
    (Production: Julio-Cesar Chavez)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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