Affected by the polar cold current, some parts of southern Texas in the United States began to encounter winter storms on the night of February 14, resulting in road icing, road closure and large-scale power outage. Photo provided by Xinhua News Agency

On February 2, 2011, Texas in the United States (hereinafter referred to as "Texas") had increased power demand due to extreme cold, and thermal power plants could not provide enough power supply, so they had to implement District blackout. In February 2021, Texas suffered a series of rare low temperature and heavy snow, water and power cut off again. On February 20, the White House issued a statement saying that US President Biden approved Texas to enter a state of "major disaster" and ordered federal departments to assist the local authorities in snow disaster response and assistance.

Ten years later, with the gradual implementation of renewable energy in the United States, why can't this big energy state get around the problem of power supply?

A large area of power failure became the fuse, causing disputes between the two parties

The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, said that as of the afternoon of February 18, all power plants in the state had resumed operation. However, on February 19, more than 195000 households in Texas were still without power.

"My family's online account shows that the power failure has been solved, but the power is still cut off at home." the situation is too difficult. I really want to take a hot bath and have a hot meal. " Said Jennifer Jordan, a high school teacher in central Lothian, Texas.

On February 15, the state power reliability Commission announced that the state had entered the "three-level alarm of electric power emergency", and each region had turned on the power supply in turn.

Although the emergency measures were implemented in a timely manner, in the past week, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in the south of the United States were hit by snowstorms, while Virginia in the East, Washington and Oregon in the Northwest were also affected. Massive blackouts have sparked controversy between the two parties.

The Republican Party skillfully grasped the cause of the power failure and tried to hammer Biden administration's clean energy development strategy with photos of frozen wind turbines posted on the Internet.

As the eldest grandson of the former two US presidents and the nephew of the younger bush, George Prescott Bush tweeted: "if there is anything that can be said in recent days, it is that we cannot do without oil and gas." As chairman of the Texas Republican victory Committee, he also oversees most of the state's oil and gas production operations. "The consequences of relying on renewable energy alone will be disastrous, many of which have proved to be unreliable."

"The power outage in Texas proves that shutting down coal, gas and nuclear power plants is a dangerous move. Switching to unstable energy sources like wind and solar can bring a lot of uncertainty, and we have to face this problem squarely. " Said Dan braulet, the energy secretary under trump.

"What we need to consider now is to adapt the overall infrastructure of the current power grid to more and more frequent extreme weather," democratic representative ocacio Cortes said. But it's sad that at this important moment, many people are trying to use this to fight the flames of renewable energy development. "

"In fact, it is the weak investment in infrastructure in Texas and the leadership of opponents of climate change that reveal the state's inadequate preparedness for disaster. This is an important signal from global warming and climate change. "

Is it because of the instability caused by the development of clean energy, or is it because of insufficient efforts to deal with climate change, which makes it difficult for local power facilities to withstand extreme weather? Public opinion continued to ferment. As for the power cut, both sides hold different opinions.

Why Texas?

On February 19, dash walker, 33, was happy to return to his Dallas apartment and enjoy electricity again. Since February 16, he has had to stay in a suburban hotel every night and pay a hefty $474 a night.

Texas is regarded as an important energy center of the United States, and Houston even has the title of "energy capital". Ten years later, why is there such a serious power crisis here?

One of the direct reasons is that, unlike other parts of the United States, Texas has established the Texas electric reliability Commission (ercot), which enables its power grid to operate almost independently and is not connected with neighboring states. This means that when there is a power shortage, Texas cannot get power support from other States quickly.

But in fact, the Texas power grid is not completely independent. It has three transmission lines connected to Mexico and two other transmission lines connected to the eastern power grid of the United States. However, when the winter storm comes, other areas covered by the power grid are also affected by the storm. In addition, due to the limited transmission channels, Texas can not get foreign power assistance.

Because of its unique oil and gas resources and wind energy resources, Texas is a well deserved energy state in both the fossil energy era and the new energy era. Therefore, the electricity price in Texas has been at a low level in the United States for a long time. The economist pointed out that for consumers, the average electricity price in Texas is 8.6 cents per kilowatt hour, about one fifth lower than the national average, and half that of California. This also makes regulators and companies not interested in developing capacity markets or building more power stations.

It is due to the neglect of capacity market in Texas that when extreme cold weather occurs and demand surges, Texas is unable to provide more electricity than expected for residents.

Therefore, this power shortage not only makes Texas cold, but also shows that there are risks and loopholes in its power system, and even big energy states can not avoid it.

What do experts think about whether power failure can find a way out?

In 2011, after the power outage in Texas, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrote a hundreds page investigation report. According to the content, more than 190 home appliance plants stopped generating electricity in 2011, accounting for 1 / 3 of the power supply in Texas. Ten years later, another cold wave hit, and another third of the power plants in Texas shut down. It seems that the bottleneck of the state power system to cope with the cold wave is still not broken.

In addition, some American media revealed that wind power itself only accounts for 7% of Texas's power generation in the cold winter, and natural gas is its main source of power generation. In this power shortage, natural gas accounts for a large part of the factors, the main reason is that its pipeline was frozen in the cold. Production of coal-fired and nuclear power plants has also declined. Therefore, many industry organizations and experts believe that the power outage can not simply throw the pot to clean energy.

The American Council renewable energy said that although some objective conditions have exacerbated the crisis in Texas, we should see that the reason why some central and western regions can avoid large-scale blackouts like Texas is that they have regional power grids connected with high-voltage transmission lines.

At present, Biden is planning to make the direction of economic development more clean and green, which may include the construction of more transmission lines, strengthening the weatherability of power infrastructure (weatherability refers to the ability of long-term resistance to cold, hot, dry and humid, and excellent corrosion resistance to rain and snow), improving power storage, and improving the capital investment of power grid structure .

"The whole grid system is really a super infrastructure, time-consuming and laborious, but we need to make sure it is climate resilient." Melanie Kenting, head of the office of energy policy and systems analysis during the Obama administration, said.

An analysis of blackouts in the United States by climate central, a research institution, shows that since 2000, the number of major blackouts caused by extreme weather events in the United States has increased by 67%.

At present, Biden authorities are still carrying out active rescue to ensure that millions of people affected by the storm in Texas get timely relief, and help the local power system to restore the stability of the past.

"Obviously, we need to plan for extreme weather and support more expensive and cleaner forms of energy in the future. It's a profound discussion. We need some time and we need to go a little bit. " New White House spokesman Jen psaki said.

Source: China Environment News