Advanced Energy Perspectives

Texas is in the midst of a severe and historic winter weather event, which has led to the worst outages the state has experienced in decades. With over 4 million Texans losing power, all eyes are on the state’s grid manager and market operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and market participants like power plant owners and operators, demand side resources, and other grid assets as they work around the clock to restore the grid to normal operating conditions. Defenders of the energy status quo are also using the occasion to cast doubt on advanced energy technologies – especially wind power, on which Texas is a national leader. But they’ve got it exactly backwards. The troubles in Texas point to the need for more advanced energy, not less.