ERCOT: Texas grid could face increased risk of outages with loss of CPS Energy’s aging gas plants

From the San Antonio Express-News

The Texas grid operator and at least one state utility commissioner are worried CPS Energy’s planned shutdown of three aging generating units could increase the likelihood of statewide power outages by putting more pressure on an already-troubling transmission chokepoint near San Antonio.

The impacts of the city-owned utility’s plan to shutter the plants at its Braunig Power Station by next March were hashed out Thursday as the Public Utility Commission eyed the multimillion-dollar cost of inspecting the units to determine if keeping them running is feasible. If it is, Texas utility ratepayers would face even more expense to make the plants ready to continue operating through summer 2026.

The possibility of cascading outages caused by an increasingly unbalanced grid may be a bigger issue than the financial costs, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has said. The grid operator told commissioners that losing Braunig’s 849 megawatts of production “has a material impact on transmission facilities” in South Texas that are critical to the grid.

“How does the system look over the next 12 months?” Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty asked, referring to new generation sources like batteries and solar farms that could be popping up north of the South Texas chokepoint by this time next year. “Does any of this transmission issue get solved as a result of that or does it continue to fester?”

Woody Rickerson, ERCOT’s chief operating officer, said there is new generation coming online by next year but still determined reliability would be put at risk without Braunig’s three fossil-fueled units’ power. It also said the troubled transmission line — called the Spruce-Pawnee circuit — could be at risk of overloading.

The circuit is at risk when plentiful power from South Texas wind farms and batteries is needed in North Texas, where capacity hasn’t kept up with increasing demand. Overloading the circuit could prompt the cascading outages, Rickerson said. CPS Energy is working on beefing up the transmission lines but they won’t be finished until mid-2027.

ERCOT has been looking for a short-term solution to the chokepoint since last year, when a close call on overcrowded transmission lines brought the grid closer to emergency conditions than it had been since Winter Storm Uri in early 2021.