UTILITIES
EMERGENCIES Preparing for Following passage of Senate Bill 3 in 2021, public utility companies throughout Texas were required to create an emergency preparedness plan, or EPP, to outline methods to ensure power and water services could be maintained in the event of another winter storm.
Changes made by New Braunfels Utilities:
Installed heat lamps to provide radiant heat on exposed level transducers Winterization materials have been stockpiled Replaced 3 substation breakers Replaced 77 fuses Changed out 21 transformers
Alternative power sources implemented at 14 locations Thermal coverings installed at exposed valves, piping and air- relief valves Backup batteries replaced Purchased small generators to reduce potential communication failures
NewBraunfels Utilities evaluating its winter preparedness one year after Uri New Braunfels Utilities crews make repairs and improvements to area infrastructure. COURTESY NEW BRAUNFELS UTILITIES
SETTING DEADLINES
December 2021 State conducts inspections of power generation and transmission facilities to evaluate compliance with weatherization process
Nov. 1, 2021 NBU submits a list of water facilities identi ed as crit- ical to PUC and electricity providers
BY LAUREN CANTERBERRY
previously been set at $88.5 million, NBU CEO Ian Taylor said. NBU passed the cost to consumers through the Generation Cost Recov- ery Factor, resulting in customer electric bill increases. Taylor estimates the short-term debt issued for the winter storm should be paid o this spring. Following the passage of Senate Bill 3 during the most recent Texas legislative session, utility providers were required to submit a list of water facilities that were identi ed as criti- cal to electric providers and the Public Utility Council, or PUC, of Texas. NBU submitted the list before the Nov. 1 deadline, said Michael Short, director of water services for NBU. Utility providers are also required to submit an emergency prepared- ness plan to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality by March 1 that outlines how NBU would over- come an extended power outage for more than 24 hours while keeping the system’s water pressure of 20 pounds per square inch or greater, Short said. “It’s a very di cult task for our system,” he said. “We have 12 pres- sure zones, and during the actual event it wasn’t so much the power outages. … It was the signi cant demand that was on our system.” As part of winter weather prepa- rations, Short and his team have installed thermal coverings at exposed valves, purchased small generators, stockpiled winterization materials and identi ed 14 locations that are in need of additional generation.
Nearly one year after Winter Storm Uri rocked the Texas power grid, trig- gering rolling blackouts and boil-wa- ter notices across the state, New Braunfels Utilities is in the process of implementing an Emergency Pre- paredness Plan to ensure its systems are ready for future emergencies. After energy production and processing failed to keep pace with demand during the week of Feb. 15, 2021, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas called for rolling outages in an attempt to shed load and allocate resources, said Rebekah Crouch, power supply manager for NBU, during a Jan. 20 conference. Though the storm was not the coldest on record, a report from ERCOT called it the most severe storm the state has experienced. “When you take temperature, moisture, duration of the storm and geographic area, all those things put together, it was the most extreme storm we had,” she said. “The four big takeaways from the storm were that there was an extreme weather event; all generation resources were impacted; natural gas speci cally had a lot of issues during the storm because of processing failures and production declines; and then communications [su ered].” During the storm, the cost of power skyrocketed from around $30 per megawatt to $9,000 per megawatt, which caused NBU to incur about $93.7 million in energy costs for February. The company’s budget for the entire scal year had
March 1, 2022 Utilities submit EPP to TCEQ
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Dec. 1, 2021 NBU submits Winter Weather Readiness Report to the PUC con rming compliance with weather preparation of transmission facilities
July 1, 2022 Utilities implement EPP to meet original deadline set by the TCEQ
Jan. 20, 2022 NBU hosts winter weath- er preparedness confer- ence with stakeholders
SOURCE: NEW BRAUNFELS UTILITIES COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
Long lead times on acquiring equipment that is necessary for completing the plan has made Short doubtful that NBU will be able to fully implement the plan by the origi- nal July 1 deadline set by the TCEQ. According to NBU o cials, the company received guidance from the TCEQ that full implementation by July will not be required, and the plan will include an implementation timeline to ensure compliance. NBU is also in the process of constructing several new facilities and infrastructure projects. The company will be required to resubmit the EPP whenever a new facility is added to the system, according to o cials. Gregory Thomas, chief engineer of electric services for NBU, said that though the company did not experience any outages before or after ERCOT directed NBU to shed load, the system su ered signi cant damage, and three substation breakers had to be replaced following the storm.
“Whenever you open and then close a substation breaker, that’s like taking a sledgehammer to your system. You are forcibly disconnecting customers and forcibly reconnecting them,” Thomas said. “That inrush can be to the point that that overloads equipment that would not have been overloaded otherwise, and that’s exactly what occurred.” NBU’s Electric Services Depart- ment completed its annual review and is updating its emergency operation plan based on tabletop exercises conducted with NBU and local o cials. In December the department sub- mitted its Winter Weather Readiness Report to the PUC after complying with preparations required for transmission facilities. NBU has also established minimum inventory levels for critical equipment and updated its plan to communicate with customers through energy emergency alerts.
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NEW BRAUNFELS EDITION • MARCH 2022
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