State of the Texas Electric Grid
- Griffin Saltron
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Observing the efficacy of current reforms before enacting new ones is the best approach the legislature can take for the moment.
Senate Committee on Business & Commerce
The Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute takes great interest in the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce’s charge to assess the State of Texas Electric Grid. The Texas Legislature has done much on this front over the last several legislative sessions, particularly in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri and now in the buildup of the data center industry and other large loads. The committee’s charge tracks those developments directly, while also addressing what remains a key concern of TCCRI, maintaining an energy-only market.
Heading into the 89th Legislative Session, ERCOT estimated significant load growth between 130 and 150 Gigawatts by 2030, which is nearly twice ERCOT’s peak load of 2024 (86 GW). Senate Bill 6 was a major effort to help ensure that the grid would remain reliable as that load growth occurs. The main objectives of SB 6 were “(1) ensuring transmission costs are properly allocated, (2) establishing grid reliability protection measures, (3) bringing transparency and credibility to load forecasting, and (4) protecting residential customers from outages by requiring large loads to share the load shed obligation during times of shortage." The bill established standards for interconnecting large load customers within ERCOT and requirements for net metering arrangements between generation facilities and new large load customers. Additionally, the bill requires ERCOT to develop protocols to enable load curtailment from large load customers when the grid is stressed. The hope and intent is that SB 6 will provide Texas with the tools necessary to maintain grid reliability while maintaining a pro-business regulatory environment.
At a basic level, ERCOT forecasts load based on weather forecasts, estimates related to how customers will respond to weather, and by implementing adjustments based on economic and structural changes. The forecasts take into consideration the temperature, humidity, wind, cloud cover, time of day, and geographic differences across Texas. ERCOT uses historical load data to predict how customers will respond to certain events. For example, ERCOT can reliably predict how the population of Houston will consumer electricity when it is 102 degrees outside.
Read the full testimony in the link above.
