Collin Leadership Policy Summit 2022: the Future of the Texas Power Grid

Complexity, winter storm Uri, handling the growth in Texas, and market redesign were among the topics addressed at the Future of the Texas Power Grid panel discussion at the inaugural Collin Leadership Policy Summit held at the Collin College Frisco Campus in November.

This panel included State Representative Matt Shaheen; Commissioner of the Public Utility Commission of Texas Kathleen Jackson; Senior VP, Secretary and General Counsel of Oncor Electric Matthew C. Henry; with moderator Collin College Board of Trustees Member Dr. Raj Menon.

Renewable energy and the state of Texas

Different types of energy were discussed, with renewable energy topping the list.

This will probably shock a lot of you, but Texas is actually one of the leading states in renewable energies for our grid, Rep. Shaheen said.

When I talked to the solar power industry, were headed down a path, the state of Texas is, were actually going to surpass California in the production of solar power, he said.

Growth in Texas

One of the challenges and opportunities for Texas is growth.

Earlier in the panel, they said 80 people are moving to Collin County [in a day], Jackson said. A 1,000 people at least 1,000 people are moving to Texas every day, and so thats a huge advantage for Texas because it is a growing market. And so, [for our] path forward our focus is on reliability, continuing to meet the growing needs, and its not one big answer; its a lot of little answers.

Winter storm Uri and beyond

With cold weather on the horizon, Dr. Menon asked if Texans could feel confident this winter.

We obviously cant control the weather but as has been talked about here tremendous things have been done to weatherize the system, said Henry. We actually had weatherized after 2011, so our system worked fine. If you lost power, it is almost certainly because we turned you off on purpose to save the grid, but there were other elements of the system and other utilities that had not weatherized. And all up and down the chain its a little bit like the circle of life. You have to have the gas to fire the powerplants. You have to have electricity to fire up the gas as Representative Shaheen indicated, and so we have increased coordination across those three distinct industries significantly.

Rep. Shaheen reassured attendees that we have some of the brightest minds that are working on this and figuring this out.

We are literally at the stage where we have that solution, and we have opened it to you all and the other 29.5 million Texans to provide public comment on our market redesign. We have an incredible, incredible future in front of us, Rep. Shaheen said.

To view the video of this panel session, click here. For more information about the inaugural summit, visit www.collin.edu/policysummit/.