Fact-check: Does the Texas grid have 15% more power generation capacity than last year?

Nusaiba Mizan, Austin American-Statesman
·5 min read
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As temperatures dropped in early February and Texans braced for severe winter weather, state officials assured the public the power grid was better prepared to handle freezing temperatures compared to 2020.

In a Feb. 3 news conference, Gov. Greg Abbott listed the reasons why he believed Texans should have confidence in the grid: "As compared to last year, Texas has about 15% more power generation capacity."

Seasonal data from grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas indicates available generation capacity is at 85,000 megawatts for winter 2021-2022, up from 83,000 megawatts in winter 2020-2021.

That comes out to be a 2% increase. So where did Abbott get 15%?

More: 'She was my everything': A chaotic week of preventable deaths in Austin as Texas froze

Abbott referred to installed capacity

Abbott's office referred PolitiFact Texas to the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT.

According to ERCOT and PUC officials, the 15% cited by Abbott describes an increase in total installed capacity from 102,874 megawatts in winter 2020 to 118,257 megawatts in winter 2021.

Total installed capacity refers to the maximum amount of power that can be generated under ideal conditions.

"That's just if everything we had on the grid was operating at its full output. That's what it could make," said Joshua Rhodes, research associate at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute and Webber Energy Group.

However, at any given time, the grid isn't producing at 100% potential, experts told PolitiFact Texas. For example, the sun isn't always shining for solar energy, or the wind isn't always blowing for wind energy, Doug Lewin, energy consultant and president of Stoic Energy Consulting, said as example.

"It's sort of more of a theoretical potential," Lewin said.

"There is no resource that has a 100% operational capacity," Lewin said. "That does not exist, but generally thermal plants have a higher operational capacity. But when you start to put together enough wind and solar, and they're spread out across a broad enough geographic area, their overall capacity factors or operational capacity increases."

Rhodes also said a lot of the capacity added in the last year included wind and solar, which would not operate at 100% capacity all the time.

"We don't expect all the wind and all the solar to be available during a winter peak event," Rhodes said.

ERCOT officials said in February that the grid has a total generating capacity at about 86,000 megawatts if needed, the American-Statesman reported then.

More: We're tracking power outages in Austin and Central Texas, plus ERCOT grid updates

The value Abbott cited described what the grid is capable of creating, though the amount of available power might be less than total installed capacity.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with saying we added a whole lot of capacity in the last year," Lewin said.

Aidan Tuohy, program manager of Grid Operations and Planning at the research and development firm Electric Power Research Institute, said resource adequacy assessments have processes to account for wind patterns and sunlight in its seasonal estimates.

"One, that let's say ERCOT used, they look at historical performance and then take either an average during stressful conditions, or some other statistical measure during stressful conditions," Tuohy said. "And then another way to do that is to actually simulate operations. For example, in California, they simulate a thousand different patterns of generator outages and wind and solar patterns based on historical data and then try to come up with what the expected observed load will be."

ERCOT included risk assessments for thermal resources based on historical information, Tuohy also noted.

More: Abbott touts grid's performance during freeze. But was last week's storm a true test?

Our ruling

As Texas braced for the effects of cold weather, Abbott assured Texans: "Compared to last year, Texas has about 15% more power generation capacity."

Experts say Abbott was referring to the total installed capacity if power generation infrastructure were running at 100% capacity. However, that is a theoretical figure. Instead, stations generate at a fraction of the total installed capacity. The amount of available power in an emergency situation would be less than the installed capacity.

We rate this as Mostly True.

How we choose and rate claims

PolitiFact Texas is a partnership between the American-Statesman and the nonprofit PolitiFact. It works to present the truth without agenda or bias. Journalists set aside opinions to uphold independence and fairness in the fact-checking process.

We look for statements to check online, in TV transcripts, in press releases, and more. When we choose what to fact check, we consider if the statement is rooted in verifiable fact, if the claim could be misleading, if the statement is significant, and if the statement could be repeated and passed on.

Once a reporter reports on the claim, they can suggest a rating to their assigning editor. The rating is ultimately decided by a panel of three editors.

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Sources

Contact Nusaiba Mizan at nmizan@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @nusaiblah.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Texas grid's power generation capacity compared to 2021