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Texas is once again under the threat of a power grid emergency because we can't seem to produce enough power to meet demand after the sun goes down. ERCOT now says there's a 16% chance of a grid emergency this summer.
Ed Hirs, an energy expert with the University of Houston, told KTRH, "This has been a number that the state has been very quietly not publicizing, really until the state legislature passed laws requiring ERCOT to tell us a little bit more about how the operations are going."
Hirs says that Texas has just been unable to keep up with the growth that Texas has seen, and the ERCOT market doesn't reward the construction and setting aside of new power plants in anticipation of that growth.
He says currently, our power grid is about five years behind where we should be in order to have enough power for everyone all the time.