What Happened in Texas, Could It Happen in RI?
Monday, February 22, 2021
Could the energy infrastructure meltdown that hit Texas that killed dozens, caused billions in damage and created economic and political chaos happen in Rhode Island?
Arguably Rhode Island's biggest and most accomplished energy executive Jeff Grybowski said that what Texas suffered was something that was unusual -- massive energy disasters linked to extreme weather -- but warned it is now happening more often.
“It was a super extreme weather event, but they are becoming more frequent — it was their worst case scenario,” said Grybowski, who as CEO of Deepwater Wind created America’s first offshore wind project.
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“The New England grid is much stronger, but it does not mean we are immune from it,” said Grybowski.
Texas is an energy producing titan — a leading supplier of oil, natural gas and wind, but the entire infrastructure failed.
A few years earlier extreme heat and drought caused California to have a massive energy failure.
“I am not sure we are learning from other states’ failures,” said Grybowski, who mentioned Texas had a significant energy failure about a decade earlier.
Newport Natural Gas Failure
In January of 2019, Newport and other parts of Aquidneck Island were hit with a gas supply failure triggered by pipeline issues in the Midwest coupled with a valve failure in Weymouth, Massachusetts and a supply issue in Providence that caused more than 7,100 to lose power in the dead of winter.
The event caused Governor Gina Raimondo to declare a “state of emergency.”
It took a week to restore some of the customers, and in October of 2019, Lt. Governor Dan McKee said he agreed with findings of the DPUC investigation -- which found fault with both National Grid and Enbridge -- the gas supplier.
McKee's statement came after he introduced legislation requiring National Grid to file comprehensive emergency preparedness plans each year and enables the State to levy fines if a utility fails to comply with performance standards.
“The Division’s report outlines serious fault on behalf of Enbridge and National Grid. I strongly endorse the Division’s position not to support any attempt by National Grid to recuperate storm-related costs from hardworking Rhode Islanders. However, a denial of reimbursement does not provide relief to the many residents and small businesses who have not been fully reimbursed for costs incurred during the outage,” said McKee.
More Frequent Major Disasters, What Is RI's Fate
Grybowski said that disruptive weather events are becoming more frequent and that while Rhode Island is not likely to have a drought like California, and New England’s grid is prepared for extreme cold, the region is not immune.
“We could have couple of hurricanes back to back,” said Grybowski.
But Grybowski said there are some significant differences between Texas and Rhode Island and the rest of New England.
"Fundamentally [Texas'] whole system failed. Their power plants are not weatherized. They have a lot of equipment outside and not indoor. Multiple pieces of equipment froze and little instruments that drive the system, simply froze and things shutdown," said Grybowski.
"Another critical difference is Texas is its own grid, built that way to avoid federal regulations and keep costs down. In contrast, the New England grid is connected to New York and Canada and if there is a severe energy event, we can pull power from those sources," said Grybowski.
"In New England, we pay for backup facilities to be ready to operate -- older power plants that don’t run very often. We want them to be on standby and pay the power plant to be consistent in maintenance," said Grybowski. "We look at it as an investment in New England. They don’t -- in Texas it is a pure play free market and you get what you pay for."
Diversified Energy Sources
Grybowski said about 90 percent of Rhode Island's electricity comes from natural gas powered power plants creating a vulnerability. He adds that offshore wind creates greater diversification as if run efficiently in the winter.
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