Andrew Engblom and Justin Horwath of S&P Global Market Intelligence and Mark Watson
New York — Almost half of Electric Reliability Council of Texas generation capacity – 52.3 GW in all — was forced out at the highest point during the winter storm starting Feb. 14, which prompted rotating outages to cut load by as much as 20 GW, ERCOT CEO and President Bill Magness said Feb. 24.
With demand climbing and many power plants unable to provide power, ERCOT ordered load shedding at 1:20 am CT on Feb. 15 to prevent the risk of a systemwide blackout. Power plants across its operating territory, however, continued to struggle through the hour, prompting additional load shedding and pushing grid frequency below 59.4 Hz for four minutes and 23 seconds.
Had the grid’s frequency remained below 59.4 Hz for nine minutes or more, more generation units would have …