Texas adds a winterized gas plant, but ERCOT still underinvests
Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager
Some long-overdue good news for the Texas power grid.
Exponentially adding intermittent and unreliable weather-dependent electrical power generation from wind and solar, while demonizing and prematurely retiring coal, natural gas and nuclear power generation has become an energy insanity in the U.S. and parts of the EU.
Adding more reliable natural gas for power generation is a good move, especially if the infrastructure has been properly winterized.
I do hold ERCOT and the natural gas power generation companies responsible for mostly *still* not sufficiently upgrading the existing infrastructure for prolonged sub-freezing cold spells.
At least this new upgrade will be properly winterized.
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“On Thursday, a north Texas-based natural gas energy expansion project was announced to further strengthen the Texas grid.
Gov. Greg Abbott, ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas, and Calpine Corporation CEO Thad Hill announced Calpine was expanding its natural gas production operations at its Freestone County Energy Center.
The center is a natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility located near Fairfield, Texas.
It was the first facility Calpine built in the northern Texas Regional Entity market area and sells electricity to ERCOT, according to its website.
… The company’s expansion project will bring more than 300 new jobs to Freestone County and 425 megawatts of new, dispatchable generation to the Texas electrical grid, the governor announced at a press conference at Calpine’s Houston headquarters Thursday morning.
The expansion is projected to generate an additional 7,000 megawatts of dispatchable generation, slated to come online in 2024.
… The Freestone Energy Center expansion “will ensure that reliable power is available in Texas no matter the weather,” he said, thanking Calpine for choosing to expand its operations in Freestone County.
Gov. Abbott also discussed ongoing partnerships with energy companies at the press conference, explaining their efforts to bring more reliable, dispatchable power to Texans.
He also described the measures the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Railroad Commission of Texas, and Electric Reliability Council of Texas have taken to ensure the Texas power grid is winterized, in compliance with legislative reforms implemented after the February freeze of 2021.
These measures include “requiring the most robust weatherization requirements in the nation,” he said, which involve additional on-sight inspections to ensure compliance with new regulations, identifying and mapping Texas’ critical energy infrastructure, implementing better coordination among state resources, personnel and operators, and incentivizing on-site redundant fuel supplies for dispatchable generation. …”