On Wednesday, March 24th Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) held a webinar titled "Search for Resilience: Texas Blackouts, Policy Fallout, and How Advanced Energy Can Help”. It has been about one month since the disastrous winter weather caused blackouts all across ERCOT, Texas’s electric grid. It was enlightening to hear from industry and policy experts about what has happened in the wake of the blackouts, and what the future of ERCOT and other electric grids across the United States will look like.
Resilience is incredibly important. We need reliable access to power in order for life to function smoothly. Schedule a call with us here to see how Breiter Planet Properties can help you keep the power on, even when the grid fails.
The panelists included Eric Fitz of AEE PowerSuite, Suzanne Bertin of Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA) Jeff Dennis of AEE Policy, Amy Heart from SunRun, and Chris Pasch from CLEAResult.
ERCOT failed to plan for this “black swan” event, and now they are paying the price. There has been significant personnel fallout as all three Public Utility Commission of Texas Commissioners resigned from their positions. Also, there has been increased legislative surrounding energy resilience in Texas as well as the rest of the United States. “There are over 300 active 2021 bills across the country related to resilience and electricity - continuing a 5 year trend.” ( AEE PowerSuite) Not all of these bills will go into law, but the fact that there are already 300 active bills related to resilience and electricity shows just how important energy resilience is.
In our recent blog What is going on in Texas? we took a look at what caused the blackouts (lack of preparedness and weatherization) and how the blackouts were exacerbated by ERCOT being independent from other energy grids in the U.S. Panelists highlighted this fact in the webinar but do not believe ERCOT will connect to the rest of the grid or move to be regulated by FERC any time in the near future.
The best part of the webinar was hearing about how solar plus storage prevailed in the face of these historic blackouts. Solar only systems did not operate while the grid was down, but solar plus storage systems powered homes through the blackouts. In some cases, homeowners with solar plus storage opened their doors to neighbors to charge their devices, take showers, and complete other essential tasks. This is a great example of how important energy resilience is at the residential level, but also displays how important it will be at commercial and industrial scale as we move towards a clean energy future.
We offer top of the line solar plus storage equipment to ensure that your power stays on in the most crucial of times. Schedule a call with us here to see how you can improve energy resilience of your home, property, or business by installing solar plus storage.
This is not an issue specific to Texas. As climate change worsens and continues to cause more severe weather patterns and storms, it is more important than ever to bolster energy resilience with solar plus storage. Wildfires in California, tropical storms in the gulf coast, freezing winter weather in Texas. Be sure that your home or business is prepared for the next time the grid fails. Check out our online shop here: https://shop.breiterplanet.com/
