“The concern is certainly sufficient,” said John Moura, director of reliability assessment at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, known as NERC.
The warnings in the annual winter forecast by NERC, which oversees the reliability of the nation’s electrical sector, comes as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the new leadership of the state’s embattled grid signal their confidence that the lights will stay on this time. Energy experts are skeptical that sufficient changes have been imposed on power plants and gas producers in Texas, where the energy industry has a lot of clout.
The February storm led to one of the biggest power outages in U.S. history, knocking out electricity to more than 4 million customers and leading to hundreds of deaths. Some homes were left without heat and water for days.
The projections by NERC show that Texas could have a nearly 40% shortfall in available power to meet demand in the event of another severe winter storm. Moura said that although such an extreme scenario is “not a highly likely event,” it cannot be ruled out.
“It is something that we’ve seen occur, and can occur, if we continue to have that extreme weather,” he said.