Texas Grid Operator Issues Winter Weather Watch Ahead of ‘Polar Vortex’

Power lines are shown in Houston, Texas, on Feb. 16, 2021. David J. Phillip/AP Photo

A group that manages a large percentage of Texas’s power supply issued an alert ahead of a forecasted cold front this weekend that is expected to send temperatures plunging.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as ERCOT, sent a warning for Jan. 15 to Jan. 17, saying that “extreme cold weather” and elevated “electrical demand” could lower reserves across Texas. ERCOT manages about 90 percent of Texas’ power grid.

“ERCOT continues to closely monitor the winter weather moving in over the weekend and will deploy all available tools to reliably manage the grid,” ERCOT said on Thursday in a separate post. “We will post daily updates to our social media channels during the ERCOT Weather Watch beginning Monday, January 15. At this time, grid conditions are expected to be normal, and there is not a current expectation of an energy emergency.”

The National Weather Service (NWS) this week said, “Much below normal temperatures along with gusty winds will lead to wind chills well below zero for many locations.”

A map posted by the agency showed that, when factoring in wind chill, temperatures could reach minus-60 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of North Dakota, Montana, and possibly Idaho. Meanwhile, portions of Texas and Oklahoma could drop below zero overnight during the severe cold outbreak next week, according to AccuWeather.

Further, AccuWeather described it as the “coldest weather so far” this winter season. “This outbreak of cold air will rival the arctic air mass right before Christmas 2022,” AccuWeather forecaster Tom Kines said in an article Wednesday.

Several forecasters said that the low temperatures that are slated to inundate the United States is due to the return of the polar vortex.

“The stratospheric polar vortex is now stretching down across North America,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Amy Butler wrote on Tuesday afternoon.

“That polar jet will be pushed further south, and guess what that does? It opens up the freezer door,” said Fox Weather Meteorologist Kendall Smith, who added: “All of that cold, arctic air that has been bottled up right over Canada, right over the Arctic, is going to be blasting its way right into the Lower 48.”

Last month, ERCOT said that its inspectors were deployed to examine electric generation units and transmission facilities to strengthen efforts to prepare for the winter season.

“The winter preparedness efforts made by market participants, reinforced by ERCOT weatherization inspections, continue to strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the ERCOT grid,” said ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas, reported Reuters.

More than half of the United States and parts of Canada, home to around 180 million people, could fall short of electricity this winter owing to a lack of natural gas infrastructure, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) warned in November.

Some areas still remain at risk of “generator-forced outages” during cold snaps, NERC said in a report. “The risk of a significant number of generator-forced outages in extreme and prolonged cold temperatures continues to threaten reliability where generators and fuel supply infrastructure are not designed or retrofitted for such conditions,” the report said.

The Texas grid operator has been concerned about extreme weather after a winter in February 2021 left millions without power for days as ERCOT fought to prevent a grid collapse due to the suspension of an unusually high amount of generation.

Also, a storm in December 2022 brought sub-freezing temperatures and extreme weather warnings to roughly two-thirds of the United States, prompting generators to add more power to the grid, while power prices in Texas spiked to $3,700 per megawatt hour.

The grid operator announced earlier this month that it had canceled the procurement of an extra 3,000 megawatts of winter power reserves after receiving bids for only 11.1 MW of capacity.

Reuters contributed to this report.