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<title> - LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE TEXAS BLACKOUTS: RESEARCH NEEDS FOR A SECURE AND RESILIENT GRID</title>
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[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

LESSONS LEARNED FROM
THE TEXAS BLACKOUTS: RESEARCH NEEDS
FOR A SECURE AND RESILIENT GRID

=======================================================================

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

__________

MARCH 18, 2021

__________

Serial No. 117-5

__________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

__________

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
43-633PDF WASHINGTON : 2021

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
JERRY McNERNEY, California PETE SESSIONS, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois MIKE GARCIA, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
DON BEYER, Virginia YOUNG KIM, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAY OBERNOLTE, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DAN KILDEE, Michigan VACANCY
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S

March 18, 2021

Page

Hearing Charter.................................................. 2

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 7
Written Statement............................................ 8

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 9
Written Statement............................................ 10

Witnesses:

Dr. Jesse Jenkins, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, Andlinger Center for Energy and the
Environment at Princeton University
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 15

Dr. Varun Rai, Associate Dean for Research; Professor of Public
Affairs, LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of
Texas at Austin
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 34

Mr. Juan Torres, Associate Laboratory Director, Energy Systems
Integration National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 42

Ms. Beth Garza, Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 56
Written Statement............................................ 58

Dr. Sue Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group
Oral Statement............................................... 69
Written Statement............................................ 71

Discussion....................................................... 91

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Jesse Jenkins, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, Andlinger Center for Energy and the
Environment at Princeton University............................ 132

Dr. Sue Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group.................. 136

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Executive summary of a report submitted by Representative Sean
Casten, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 140

Documents submitted by Representative Bill Posey, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 145

Article submitted by Representative Bill Posey, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 157

Report submitted by Representative Brian Babin, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 161

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE TEXAS
BLACKOUTS: RESEARCH NEEDS
FOR A SECURE AND RESILIENT GRID

----------

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
via Webex, Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson [Chairwoman of the
Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. And without objection, the Chair is
authorized to declare recess at any time.
Before I deliver my opening remarks, I want to note that
Committee is meeting virtually, and I want to announce a couple
of reminders to the Members about the conduct of the hearing.
First, Members should keep their video feed on as long as they
are present in the meeting. Members are responsible for their
own microphones. Please also keep your microphones muted unless
you are speaking. And finally, if Members have documents they
wish to submit for the record, please email them to the
Committee Clerk, whose email address was circulated prior to
the meeting. These are our standard instructions, and I know
we'll all cooperate.
Just a month ago on Valentine's Day, Winter Storm Uri
descended upon Texas and broke cold temperature records across
the State. Forty-eight percent of the electricity generation
capacity for the State grid went offline due to frozen
components and frozen fuel supplies. By February the 16th, four
million Texas households were without power. Millions of Texans
had no heat and no electricity for three days or more with
temperatures well below freezing. At least 70 people died as a
result of Winter Storm Uri and these power outages. One of them
was just 11 years old. Cristian Pineda died of hypothermia
after electricity was cutoff in his family's mobile home in
Conroe, Texas. He had been trying to stay warm under a pile of
blankets with his three-year-old brother. An eight-year-old
girl and her mother died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris
County after they ran the family car to try to stay warm.
The electricity and heating crisis led to a severe water
crisis. Water pipes burst, flooding homes. By Friday the 19th,
12 million Texans were under a boil water advisory because the
water supplies had fallen too low. And all of this happened in
the midst of the greatest public health crisis this country has
seen in a century, when families are dealing with lost loved
ones, lost jobs, illness, and isolation.
I'm lucky enough to have lost power for just 1 day, and I
kept warm overnight just by piling on blankets.
Texans, Texans deserve better. There was a lot of
discussion in the immediate aftermath of the Texas blackouts
about who to blame. There was a lot of misinformation and
political jockeying. What seems clear already is that Electric
Reliability Council of Texas, better known as ERCOT, failed to
prepare its energy infrastructure for extreme weather
conditions. It is unacceptable that millions of Texans were
left without power for days on end during one of the worst
winter storms in our State's history.
But I know there is more for us to examine about what
happened in Texas, and it is our responsibility as policymakers
to get answers. Why didn't the models used by the utilities see
this coming? Which systems and components performed well and
which failed? Could better demand response technologies have
allowed the Texas grid operators to ease the burden of these
charges and outages? What was the role of climate change in
enabling the conditions for this extreme weather episode? How
ready is the electricity sector for future extreme weather
events like wildfires and heat waves? That's what I had thought
we'd be looking forward to but not this type of winter. Will
Texas be brought to its knees if our grid is attacked by a
sophisticated adversary?
If we can get a clear-eyed understanding of how these
failures occurred, we can help prevent them from happening in
the future. What Texans endured last month must not be in vain.
We must learn from this episode and redouble our research
efforts in support of a more reliable, resilient electricity
sector.
Last Congress, our fellow Committee Member, Mr. Bera of
California, introduced a bipartisan bill with Mr. Weber of
Texas to do just that called the Grid Security Research and
Development Act. I understand he intends to reintroduce this
bill this Congress, and I look forward to working with him and
my other colleagues on both sides of the aisle for this
important effort.
Today, I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses,
some of whom were also personally affected by power outages.
These five panelists represent some of the foremost experts in
electricity reliability in the country, and we are honored to
have them with us today. I hope that as the Texas Legislature
considers what to do in response to this crisis, they will heed
the lessons that we all share with us today.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

Just one month ago on Valentine's Day, Winter Storm Uri
descended on Texas and broke cold temperature records across
the state. Forty-eight percent of the electricity generation
capacity for the Texas grid went offline due to frozen
components and frozen fuel supplies. By February 16, four
million Texas households were without power. Millions of Texans
had no heat and no electricity for three days or more with
temperatures well below freezing.
At least 70 people died as a result of Winter Storm Uri and
these power outages. One of them was just eleven years old.
Cristian Peneda died of hypothermia after electricity was cut
off in his family's mobile home in Conroe. He had been trying
to stay warm under a pile of blankets with his three-year-old
brother. An eight-year-old girl and her mother died of carbon
monoxide poisoning in Harris County after they ran the family
car to try to stay warm.
And the electricity and heating crisis led to a severe
water crisis. Water pipes burst, flooding homes. By Friday the
19th, 12 million Texans were under a boil water advisory
because the water supplies had fallen too low. And all of this
happened in the midst of the greatest public health crisis this
country has seen in a century, when families are dealing with
lost loved ones, lost jobs, illness, and isolation.
Texans deserve better.
There was a lot of discussion in the immediate aftermath of
the Texas blackouts about who to blame. There was a lot of
misinformation and political jockeying, too. What seems clear
already is that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas,
better known as ERCOT, failed to prepare its energy
infrastructure for extreme weather conditions. It is
unacceptable that millions of Texans were left without power
for days on end during one of the worst winter storms in our
state's history.
But I know there is more for us to examine about what
happened in Texas, and it is our responsibility as policymakers
to get answers. Why didn't the models used by the utilities see
this coming? Which systems and components performed well and
which failed? Could better demand response technologies have
allowed the Texas grid operators to ease the burden of these
outages? What was the role of climate change in enabling the
conditions for this extreme weather episode? How ready is the
electricity sector for future extreme weather events, like
wildfires and heat waves? Will Texas be brought to its knees if
our grid is attacked by a sophisticated adversary?
If we can get a clear-eyed understanding of how these
failures occurred, we can help prevent them from happening in
the future. What Texans endured last month must not be in vain.
We must learn from this episode and redouble our research
efforts in support of a more reliable and resilient electricity
sector. Last Congress, my fellow Committee Member, Mr. Bera of
California, introduced a bipartisan bill with Mr. Weber to do
just that, called the Grid Security Research and Development
Act. I understand he intends to re-introduce this bill this
Congress, and I look forward to working with him and my other
colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this important effort.
Today, I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses,
some of whom were also personally affected by power outages.
These five panelists represent some of the foremost experts in
electricity reliability in the country, and we are honored to
have you with us. I hope that as the Texas legislature
considers what to do in response to this crisis, they will heed
the lessons that you all share with us today.
I yield to Ranking Member Lucas.

Chairwoman Johnson. I now recognize and yield to our
Ranking Member, Mr. Lucas.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this
important and timely hearing.
Today, we have an opportunity to examine last month's
blackouts in Texas and other Southern and Midwestern States.
There is no better time to hear about the ongoing efforts by
industry, Federal agencies, and the Department of Energy (DOE)
national labs to learn from these events and adapt for the
future.
Before we begin, I'd like to express my gratitude for the
safety of my Texas friends here, and I hope your families are
well, and your districts, like mine, are on their way to
recovery.
I'd also like to commend the public utilities and member-
owned cooperatives in my State for how well they managed their
crisis and ensure the safety of their customers and my
constituents.
Physical and cyber threats to our power grid are
constantly evolving. This incident, alongside last year's
wildfires on the West Coast and the recent solar winds cyber
attack highlights the need for congressional action to ensure
the security and resilience of the U.S. energy sector.
As we discussed these events and their causes, we on the
Science Committee have a responsibility to focus on the long-
term technological solutions that can help us prepare for and
respond to the next trial. As the past year has shown, it's not
a matter of if our grid will be tested again, it's a matter of
when. The Science Committee has jurisdiction over DOE's
electricity delivery, cybersecurity, energy security, and
emergency response research and development (R&D) activities.
This work is essential to maintaining the stability and
flexibility of our grid not just for today's needs but also for
the next generation's.
Through its world-leading national laboratories and Grid
Modernization Laboratory Consortium, DOE supports R&D in
advanced grid modeling, grid energy storage, information
sharing, and advanced control systems. By partnering with
industry DOE can provide stakeholders with critical expertise
and enable the deployment of new grid security tools and
technologies.
This morning, we will hear from Beth Garza, a Senior
Fellow at R Street's Energy and Environmental Policy Team. She
served as the Director of the Electric Reliability Council
(ERCOT) of Texas, known to all of us as ERCOT, Independent
Marketing Monitor from 2014 through 2019. Beth brings a
critical perspective to this distinguished witness panel and
could provide first-hand insight into ERCOT and the power
supply industry as a whole. I look forward to her testimony
highlighting the needs and challenges of our diverse and
complex power delivery system.
This hearing also will serve as an opportunity to discuss
grid security legislation. Last year, H.R. 5760, the Grid
Security Research and Development Act, passed by the House with
strong bipartisan support. This legislation authorized the DOE
(Department of Energy) research, development, and demonstration
(RD&D) activities that focus on the discovery of innovative
tools and technologies for energy sector security and
resilience. The provisions of this bill were originally a
central component of the bipartisan and bicameral Energy Act of
2020, which became law last Congress.
Unfortunately, due to last-minute jurisdictional claims
from outside Committees, this bill had to be removed from the
Energy Act at the 11th hour. I am hopeful that we can work
together to once again introduce and pass grid security
legislation this session, preferably this year.
The energy sector faces unique challenges that require
institutional knowledge and data that only the Department of
Energy can provide. DOE is responsible for energy-critical
infrastructure, which includes electric power, oil, and natural
gas. It also has authority over the cybersecurity of energy
delivery systems. Providing DOE researchers and industry with
the tools they need to ensure the long-term security and
resilience of our electric grid should be something we can all
agree on.
This Congress, I will prioritize getting these provisions
over the finish line, working with my friends on both sides of
the aisle to get this done. I thank our witnesses today for
their valuable testimony at such a critical time, and I look
forward to a productive discussion about how Federal agencies
can work with industry to deliver affordable power to American
homes, businesses, and essential services.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson for holding this important
and timely hearing. Today, we have an opportunity to examine
last month's blackouts in Texas and other southern and
midwestern states. There is no better time to hear about the
ongoing efforts by industry, federal agencies, and the
Department of Energy national laboratories to learn from these
events and adapt for the future.
Before we begin, I'd like to express my gratitude for the
safety of my Texas friends here. I hope that your families are
well and your districts--like mine--are on their way to a full
recovery.
Physical and cyber threats to our power grid are constantly
evolving. This incident, alongside last year's wildfires on the
West Coast and the recent SolarWinds cyber- attack, highlights
the need for Congressional action to ensure the security and
resilience of the U.S. energy sector. As we discuss these
events and their causes, we on the Science Committee have a
responsibility to focus on the long-term technological
solutions that can help us prepare for and respond to the next
trial. As the past year has shown, it's not a matter of if our
grid will be tested again, it's a matter of when.
The Science Committee has jurisdiction over DOE's
electricity delivery, cybersecurity, energy security, and
emergency response research and development activities. This
work is essential to maintaining the stability and flexibility
of our grid, not just for today's needs but also for the next
generation's.
Through its world-leading national laboratories and Grid
Modernization Laboratory Consortium, DOE supports R&D in
advanced grid modeling, grid energy storage, information
sharing, and advanced control systems. By partnering with
industry, DOE can provide stakeholders with critical expertise
and enable the deployment of new grid security tools and
technologies.
This morning, we will hear from Beth Garza, a senior fellow
with R Street's Energy & Environmental Policy Team. She served
as director of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas
(ERCOT) Independent Market Monitor from 2014 through 2019. Beth
brings a critical perspective to this distinguished witness
panel and can provide first-hand insight into ERCOT and the
power supply industry as a whole. I look forward to her
testimony highlighting the needs and challenges of our diverse
and complex power delivery system.
This hearing will also serve as an opportunity to discuss
grid security legislation. Last Congress, H.R. 5760, the Grid
Security Research and Development Act, passed the House with
strong bipartisan support. This legislation authorizes DOE
research, development, and demonstration activities that focus
on the discovery of innovative tools and technologies for
energy sector security and resilience. The provisions in this
bill were originally a central component of the bipartisan and
bicameral Energy Act of 2020, which became law last Congress.
Unfortunately, due to last minute jurisdictional claims from
outside committees, this bill had to be removed from the Energy
Act in the 11th hour. I'm hopeful that we can work together to
once again introduce and pass grid security legislation this
year.
The energy sector faces unique challenges that require
institutional knowledge and data that only the Department of
Energy can provide. DOE is responsible for energy critical
infrastructure, which includes electric power, oil and natural
gas. It also has authority over the cybersecurity of energy
delivery systems. Providing DOE researchers and industry with
the tools they need to ensure the long-term security and
resiliency of our electric grid should be something we can all
agree on. This Congress I will prioritize getting these
provisions over the finish line, working with my friends on
both sides of the aisle to get this done.
I thank our witnesses today for their valuable testimony at
such a critical time. I look forward to a productive discussion
about how federal agencies can work with industry to deliver
affordable power to American homes, businesses, and essential
services.
Thank you Madam Chair and I yield back the balance of my
time.

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
And at this time if there are persons who would wish to
submit a statement for the record, you're welcome to do that.
I'd like now to introduce our witnesses. Dr. Jesse Jenkins
is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University with a joint
appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, and the Andlinger Center for Energy and
Environment. Dr. Jenkins also leads the Princeton ZERO Lab, the
Zero carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization
Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering systems and a
master's in technology and policy from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
Dr. Varun Rai is the Walt and Elspeth Rostow Professor in
the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas
(UT) at Austin. He is the Director of the UT Energy Institute
and Associate Dean for Research in the LBJ School. He received
his Ph.D. and his master's in mechanical engineering from
Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.
Dr. Juan Torres is the Associate Laboratory Director of
Energy Systems Integration at the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL). In this role, he oversees NREL's research to
modernize and strengthen the security, resilience, and
sustainability of the Nation's electrical grid. Prior to his
time at NREL, he had a 27-year career at Sandia National
Laboratories. Mr. Torres holds a bachelor's degree in
electronic engineering technology from the University of
Southern Colorado, a master's degree in electrical engineering
from the University of New Mexico.
Ms. Beth Garza is a Senior Fellow with R Street's Energy
and Environmental Policy Team. Ms. Garza previously served as
the Director of Electric Reliability Council of Texas,
Independent Market Monitor from 2014 through 2019 after serving
as a Deputy Director since 2008. She is a graduate of the
University of Missouri and a registered professional engineer
in the State of Texas.
Last but certainly not least, Dr. Sue Tierney is a Senior
Advisor at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm located
in Boston. She is a former Assistant Secretary for Policy at
the U.S. Department of Energy, State Cabinet Officer for
Environmental Affairs, and State Public Utility Commissioner
and has more than 35 years of experience in this field. Her
master's degree and Ph.D. in regional planning are from Cornell
University.
I want to thank all of our outstanding witnesses for
joining us today. And as our witnesses should know, you will
have 5 minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written
testimony will be included in the record for the hearing. When
you have completed your spoken testimony, we will begin our
questions. Each Member will have 5 minutes to question you as a
panel.
Now we will start with Dr. Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins, you may
begin your testimony.

TESTIMONY OF DR. JESSE JENKINS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

OF MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING,

ANDLINGER CENTER FOR ENERGY

AND THE ENVIRONMENT AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Dr. Jenkins. Thank you, and good morning. My name is Jesse
Jenkins, and I must note that the views expressed in this
testimony are my own and I am not speaking as a Representative
of Princeton University.
I'd like to first thank Chair Johnson and Ranking Member
Lucas and the Members of this Committee for inviting my
testimony, and I commend the Committee for holding this hearing
and for trying to get to the bottom of what went wrong in Texas
during last month's extreme cold. The truth is there is plenty
of blame to go around. The failures to plan for and build
resilience to this extreme cold were systemic. All sources of
power experienced failures from natural gas and coal plants to
wind turbines and even one of the State's four nuclear
reactors.
The energy crisis was not limited just to the power
system. Natural gas wells and pipelines also froze, cutting off
gas supply just as it was needed most. And State and Federal
policymakers alike all failed to require more robust
winterization measures after a 2011 storm provided ample
warning of the fragility of Texas's energy infrastructure to
extreme cold.
These systemic failures make it easy to cherry-pick claims
that advance one's preferred narrative, but the dozens of
Texans who died and the millions who suffered through the
crisis deserve a full account of what went wrong. And now is
the time to learn from the crisis and to take steps to prepare
for the extreme weather that all Americans face, threats that
climate change is making more severe.
Energy systems can and should be made more resilient with
existing technology. After all, wind turbines operate today in
Antarctica, gas plants in Alberta, and gas wells in Alaska. Of
course, weatherizing our infrastructure comes at an added cost
that must be paid back every year in the hopes that devastating
but rare crises are avoided. In this way, building resilience
to extreme events is a bit like buying fire insurance for your
home. Most of us buy insurance not because we ever expect our
homes to burn, but we know that if such a tragedy should occur,
we'd lose everything, and building our lives back may be
impossible. So we pay the premium every year. Determining how
much insurance in the form of investment in grid resilience is
worth it, and what kinds of crises we wish to protect against
is thus the key question.
Answering this question is more difficult now than ever
because the changing climate means the past is no longer a safe
guide to the future. Extreme weather events are dangerous
because our critical infrastructures are resilient only up to a
point. When pushed a little bit further, a few degrees colder
or hotter, an inch more rain, these systems can fail in
catastrophic ways.
This is where research can make a difference. Expanded
investment in climate science could help planners build more
resilient systems. This research should focus on assessing
impacts on critical infrastructures and identifying
catastrophic failure modes.
We must also look forward to the technologies needed to
build a resilient, affordable, and clean electricity system. We
can see a glimpse of this feature in Texas where wind and solar
provide a quarter of all electricity in 2020, more than 2.5
times the national average. Yet during this crisis, wind and
solar provided at times a tiny fraction of their maximum
output, leaving some to question can we assure a clean and
resilient grid with a larger role for wind and solar power? The
answer is yes, and to understand why, we need to understand the
role of each resource in our electricity system.
We don't need every source of electricity to be reliable
at all times. What we need is the system to be reliable, and
that requires a mix of electricity resources all playing the
right role. Wind and solar don't deliver value by being
dependable. Everyone knows the wind is inconstant and the night
affects solar output. Wind and solar deliver real value as
fuel-saving resources. When available, these resources displace
costlier sources of electricity from fuel-consuming resources
like natural gas and coal. That saves billions of dollars and
helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
What we also need is to maintain sufficient firm
generating capacity to deliver necessary reliability. Firm
resources are technologies that are available on-demand any
time of the year for as long as needed. These characteristics
make firm resources a critical complement to weather-dependent
renewable energy sources, as well as resources like batteries
that are best suited to fast bursts of use rather than
sustained output over several days or weeks.
For instance, Princeton's Net-Zero America study, which I
co-authored, finds that the United States needs to maintain a
similar magnitude of firm generating capacity as we have today
as the Nation makes a big but affordable transition to net zero
greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the next decade existing gas capacity and nuclear
reactors can act as firm resources and ensure reliability as
wind and solar expand and displace coal and gas-fired
generation. But reaching 100 percent carbon-free electricity
systems will ultimately require sufficient clean firm capacity,
and the time to invest in these technologies is now. Wind,
solar, lithium ion batteries took decades to improve, including
funding from R&D, demonstration and creation of early market
opportunities through subsidies and standards. This proven
process of making clean energy cheap must now be replicated for
a full portfolio of clean firm technologies.
In the Energy Act of 2020, this Committee worked on a
bipartisan basis to enact critical new authorizations to
advance many of these innovative clean firm technologies. More
effort and investment will be required to scale up and improve
these technologies in the years ahead beginning with
appropriations this year to make new authorizations a reality.
Thank you for having me today, and I look forward to
engaging with you on these critical questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jenkins follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you, Dr. Jenkins.
Dr. Varun Rai.

TESTIMONY OF DR. VARUN RAI,

ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH;

PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS,

LBJ SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Dr. Rai. Thank you, Chair Johnson. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning to Ranking Member Lucas and other Members of the
Committee. My name is Varun Rai. I'm a Professor at the
University of Texas at Austin, and thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you for this important hearing.
I live in Austin, Texas. Texas-wide power outages started
early morning on the 15th of February, affecting more than 4
million homes and businesses over 3 days. Inside our house, the
temperature went down into the 30's for several days. It was
like living inside of a refrigerator for days. Sadly, some of
my fellow Texans died due to the crisis and aren't around to
tell their tales.
There were three key contributors to the severity of the
impact. First, equipment in both power generation and gas
production systems froze. After another blackout in Texas in
2011, winterization of both power and gas equipment was
identified as a high-priority item. Some changes were made
based on those recommendations, but most standards are
requirements tied to operational performance in extreme cold
were set. This has meant that there is insufficient overall
investment in winterization of the energy system in Texas.
Second, there were gaffes in communication and
coordination. As part of ERCOT's load shedding, power to many
oil and gas field operations were shut down, which meant a
further strain on gas production on top of declines in
production due to the weather. Power was also lost at water
treatment and pumping facilities across the State. On the
customer side, there was an absolute lack of coordinated,
consistent, and timely emergency communication to the people of
Texas. This translated the extreme weather-induced stress on
the power system into a severe humanitarian crisis.
Third, even with clear warning of a severe weather event
days and even weeks ahead, there were not enough calls in
advance to reduce demand and conserve energy, including both
electricity and gas. In my view, not mobilizing enough
voluntary demand reduction during the weather event was the
single biggest lost opportunity to minimize the impacts of the
crisis.
Looking ahead, to learn fully from the Texas power crisis
of February 2021 there are five questions that need further and
immediate research to support decisionmaking. Over 4 million
homes and businesses in Texas lost power during the crisis.
Power outage led to a water crisis. The power and water
failures put millions of Texans under extreme physical, mental,
and financial stress. The load sheds were based on
unsophisticated critical-load lists, which did not account for
infrastructure interdependency, thus we need research and--to
design load-management strategies to minimize extreme stress
for households , taking into account the interdependent nature
of critical infrastructure and implications for fairness and
equity.
Some early estimates put the damages and economic losses
upwards of $100 billion. The full scale and scope of costs and
losses are multifaceted, for example, damages to water
infrastructure and loss production at manufacturing facilities
and bankruptcies of companies and local utilities and local
governments. We should consider all these factors when
evaluating the benefits and costs of infrastructure
investments. There is critical need to support research that
advances a more robust and comprehensive accounting and
understanding of the full scale of damages that result from
extreme events.
As I mentioned before, one of the biggest failures in the
days leading up to the event was how poorly the demand side was
engaged. Demand flexibility, both programmatic and voluntary,
will inevitably need to play a much larger and effective role
in the future to maintain system reliability in the face of
extreme events. Achieving that flexibility at very large scale
and over short timeframes of hours and days is an important
area of further research.
To outside observers, during much of the crisis there was
very little information and data about the status of the system
and how it might evolve. People were not just in power
darkness; they were also in information darkness. To address
this, there is a need to design data-sharing mechanisms and
collaborative efforts, including researchers at universities
and national labs with appropriate data-governance mechanisms
to enable monitoring, analysis, feedback, and problem-solving
by the broader community around and during crises.
With the frequency of extreme weather events expected to
increase as impacts of climate change unfold further, the need
to understand the long-term benefits and cost of connecting
ERCOT to the U.S. Eastern and Western grids is also immediate.
In particular, we need research that accounts for climate-
induced stresses on the energy system, systemwide
vulnerabilities and options, changing energy mix, and changing
nature of demand.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present at this
hearing, and I look forward to the discussion.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Rai follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you, Dr. Rai.
Mr. Juan Torres.

TESTIMONY OF MR. JUAN TORRES,

ASSOCIATE LABORATORY DIRECTOR,

ENERGY SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Mr. Torres. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas,
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss [inaudible]. I commend the Committee for this timely
hearing, as it will inform research that will help guide the
Nation toward a more secure and resilient energy future. My
name is Juan Torres, and I serve as the Associate Laboratory
Director for Energy Systems Integration at the U.S. Department
of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, in
Golden, Colorado. I've been affiliated with Federal research in
our national laboratory system for over 30 years. In my current
position, I direct NREL's efforts to strengthen the security
resilience and sustainability of our Nation's electric grid. In
addition, I'm Co-Chair for the DOE Grid Modernization
Laboratory Consortium and Technical Lead for its Security and
Resilience Teams.
I observed the catastrophic failures of the Texas energy
system not just as a research engineer but as a concerned
parent, as both of my children reside in Texas. My son works in
Austin and my daughter is a graduate student in Irving. The
severity of the event was clear when the conversations with
them became do you have enough food, water, and blankets? Sit
in your car and run it to charge your phone and get warm.
Tragically, many others in the Texas community had it much
worse.
It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention.
I can say that we have many needs with regards to the power
grid, but I'm also hopeful because we as a nation have the
innovation and horsepower to meet these needs. But where do we
start? First, we need to understand where we came from and
where we're going. There is no single owner, operator, or
architect for the U.S. power system. It is an engineering
marvel influenced by a collective of stakeholders over more
than a century.
Recent years have seen the grid evolve from a network
based on large, centralized generation to a hybrid system
incorporating more distributed renewable resources. Significant
changes are also occurring at the grid edge near the consumer.
Never before has a consumer been more proactive and engaged
with the operation of the grid. Real-time pricing, transactive
energy, smart appliances and lighting, grid-interactive
buildings and smart loads, electric vehicles, and residential
photovoltaics are just some of the technologies transforming
the edge of the grid. And we have yet to understand the long-
term energy impacts that innovations resulting from COVID-19's
influence on the work-from-home culture.
Equally important is awareness of the dynamic threat space
which includes not only severe weather but also physical
attacks, geomagnetic disturbances, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
events, and the ever-growing cyber threat. I offer the
following recommendations based on critical lessons from the
recent outage in Texas and other past major storm events.
First, take actions to harden the grid and generation
fleet to the broad spectrum of evolving threats for improved
monitoring, planning, investments, and technology advancements.
Second, address the overall resilience of the energy
system from fuel to generation, to delivery, to end-use, taking
into account interdependent infrastructure such as
communication systems, natural gas pipelines, and
transportation systems.
Third, research how a grid with more controllable devices
and increasingly high penetrations of variable renewable
generation can be even more secure and resilient than today's
grid.
While these challenges are considerable, research is
lighting the path forward. Let me give you some examples. DOE's
Grid Modernization Initiative (GMI) and the 14 national labs in
the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium have been working
with industry and academia to tackle grid research challenges
over the past 5 years in devices, advanced architectures and
controls, design and planning tools, generation, sensors,
regulatory policy support, and security and resilience.
NAERM, the North American Energy Resilience Model, is a
DOE multi-lab comprehensive modeling capability being developed
to support grid planning and investment and to understand the
grid's state of resilience while considering interdependencies
with the natural gas and communication sectors.
ARIES, NREL's state-of-the-art Advanced Research on
Integrated Energy Systems platform, is leading the way for
large-scale experimentation and cyber emulation of the future
grid from behind the meter to the bulk transmission system.
We've only just opened the door to many new research
directions.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I
look forward to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Torres follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Torres.
Ms. Beth Garza.

TESTIMONY OF MS. BETH GARZA,

SENIOR FELLOW, R STREET INSTITUTE

Ms. Garza. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Johnson,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee. Before I
get started, I want to add my recognition to the tremendous
human impacts suffered by Texans during the February winter
storms. I'm sure the efforts of this Committee will help ensure
that the U.S. infrastructure--excuse me--becomes better able to
withstand the challenges that it faces.
Today, I'm going to discuss three areas where research
would be of most value. These are forecasting, the
weatherization or winterization of power plants and their fuel
supply, and the third area is the improved granularity of
operation and control of demand within the electricity
distribution systems.
So starting with forecasting, demand for electricity is
very sensitive to weather conditions, primarily temperature,
and as an industry, we've become very good at forecasting
customer demand based on foreseeable weather conditions.
However, if we had a better long-term view of potential weather
conditions, system preparedness and resiliency would improve.
ERCOT prepares and publishes an assessment of demand and
supply for each season. Unfortunately, their forecast for
extreme demand this past winter was based on weather
experienced during February 2011. The weather conditions
actually experienced this year were much were much more severe.
I believe all electric utility systems would benefit from new
forecasting tools and techniques to ensure their longer-range
planning is preparing them for the conditions that they may
face.
Moving on to the winterization of supply, I caution that
it's too early to draw detailed conclusions about the causes of
all of the generator outages that we--that resulted in the
curtailment of firm load, but based on preliminary data, it is
clear that every type of generation--nuclear, coal, natural
gas, wind, and solar--were limited in some manner during the
extreme cold that we experienced.
Also, based on preliminary data, generator outages were
primarily the result of insufficient weatherization and fuel
supply disruptions. I've heard that maybe half of the outages
that natural gas plants--power plants were due to the lack of
fuel delivered at sufficient volumes and pressures. It's too
early to draw specific conclusions other than to recognize the
codependence of electricity and natural gas systems, especially
in Texas.
Much has been made of the lack of mandatory winterization
standards for power plants, and I suggest that it's easy to say
that winterization should be mandatory, but effective
regulations require a specific standard to be met, and any such
standard should also have benefits that exceed cost. And one of
the challenges power plants and natural gas system owners in
Texas face is appropriately assessing the winterization
benefits due to the relative infrequency of very cold weather.
Winterization comes in various forms with different costs and
performance implications, and understanding these costs and
performance tradeoffs will be very valuable to the standard-
setting process.
My last point has to do with distribution system
improvements. Texas has an expansive advanced metering
infrastructure. Preliminary results indicate that the Texas
smart grid was not managed in a particularly smart manner. For
example, the General Manager of Austin Energy, my local public
power utility, described our advanced meters as capable of
being disconnected remotely but requiring a person in the field
to reconnect.
This same topic came up during a recent hearing at the
Texas legislature where an executive from CenterPoint Energy,
which serves the greater Houston area, described different
limitations preventing them from using their advanced meters to
manage curtailment. And limitations as I've heard them
described seem to be a lack of supplemental technologies
combined with institutional and policy differences. The same
improvements that could have eased the burden of these lengthy
outages to a subset of customers could also form the foundation
for demand to express their willingness to pay and receive
higher reliability. The ability to use scarce supply to serve
demand, which values it the most, is the foundation of economic
efficiency.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Garza follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Ms. Garza.
Dr. Sue Tierney.

TESTIMONY OF DR. SUE TIERNEY,

SENIOR ADVISOR, ANALYSIS GROUP

Dr. Tierney. Good morning, Chairman--Chairwoman Johnson,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee. My name is
Sue Tierney. Although I am testifying today on my own behalf, I
also share various grid resiliency and research-related
recommendations from two recent National Academies of Sciences
Committees on which I have served.
The recent power outages in Texas led to extremely
challenging living conditions for millions of people and of
course the tragedy of 70 people having lost their lives. It
disrupted access to critical services like heating and water
supply. This crisis highlights the critical role that reliable
and resilient electric service plays in the health and well-
being of Americans.
It is clear that steps could have been taken by State
officials, grid operators, and energy companies in Texas that
would have lessened the extent of the crisis in these human
hardships. These events cry out for the need for further
research to ensure a resilient electric supply, especially as
we anticipate worsening and more frequent extreme weather
conditions in the decades ahead.
The Federal Government has an essential role to play here.
As the Academies of Sciences' 2017 report on enhancing the
resiliency of the electric grid pointed out--and I'm quoting
here--``The Department of Energy is the Federal entity with a
mission to focus on the longer-term issues of developing and
promulgating technologies and strategies to increase the
resilience and modernization of the grid.'' No other entity in
the United States has the mission to support such work. This is
a public good. If funding were not provided by the Federal
Government, this gap in research won't be filled by the States
or the private sector. In short, this is a role for the Federal
Government.
In my written testimony, I discussed factors that affected
the power outages in Texas and related research needs. Because
others on the panel have already talked about the Texas
electricity crisis, I would only add a couple of points. Texas
is the only State in the United States with an electric
industry structure that combines an energy-only competitive
wholesale market and mandatory customer choice among
competitive retail suppliers. This is largely viewed by
academic economists as having been a successful electricity
market design, although some observers, including myself, have
questioned whether such an approach that relies explicitly on
the expectation of very high electricity prices, at times power
shortages, is politically sustainable in the event that such
conditions actually occur.
Now, for several years the North American Electric
Reliability Council (NERC) pointed--has pointed out ERCOT's
slim reserve margins as contributing to reliability risks.
Texas previously experienced winter conditions which created
electric reliability problems. In following up on
investigations in 2011, the staff of the Federal Energy
Research--Regulatory--excuse me, Regulatory Commission (FERC)
and NERC said the outages could have been avoided, and they
encouraged State policymakers to adopt policies to encourage
performance of the system under stressful conditions. However,
for the most part, policymakers and the electric and gas
industries in Texas did not act on these recommendations, and
this set the stage for the events in February this year.
Clearly, these are a chilling reminder of the critical need for
reliable and resilient electricity in the--our basic needs.
Although the Texas electricity crisis was an unusual
event, it could happen anywhere, and proactive steps should be
taken to lower the risk impacts of the occurrences. The 2017
Reliability and Resilience Report from the National Academies,
along with a new report in February 2021 on the future of the
power system, identified grid resilience as a key issue. In my
written testimony, I have provided seven pages of findings and
recommendations from these two studies, and I won't go through
them here. Let me just mention a very short set.
First, we conclude that research--scientific research and
applied development and demonstration programs related to the
electric industry should be tripled. That's for science, and
much more of this support should be in multiyear
appropriations.
I see my time is up, and I would encourage the Committee
to take a careful look at my written testimony for the
additional recommendations. And I appreciate so much the
Committee's attention to these important issues. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Tierney follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
At this point we will begin our first round of questions,
and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. Dr. Rai, you pointed
out that ERCOT's strategy for implementing load curtailment in
order to keep demand and supply roughly even while generation
supplies were out was basically all or nothing. Rather than
users curtailing part of their electricity demand by lowering
their thermostats or cutting some of their electricity use,
entire subnetworks were either on or off. Is this how Houston
got into the infuriating situation where people were freezing
in their homes and yet when they looked across the way at
downtown, all the buildings were lit up and electrified with no
one inside?
And the second question, how could a smarter load
management strategy provide for more equity in grid operations
during an emergency so that low-income neighborhoods don't take
it all on the chin more than others? Dr. Rai, could you
enlighten us a bit?
Dr. Rai. Thank you so much for that question, Chairwoman
Johnson. Your sense is right. The severity of the supply
disruption was so high that in many parts, in most parts of
Texas only critical load and critical circuits were kept alive.
Everything--all the load-critical circuits, a majority of them,
were shed. And that meant that the noncritical load that are
part of the critical load circuits that were kept alive, they
also stayed on, and there was not much ability, again, just
because of the severity and the depth of the event to rotate
outages.
And so that's linked very much to your second part of the
question, Chairwoman Johnson, in terms of being able to rotate
the outages and being fair and equitable about it. It did mean
that there were several parts across Texas where lower-income
communities did have to weather more brunt of the whole event.
And so as we heard from Ms. Garza, a much more granular
approach to how this--these events are managed, the
technologies do exist, but they do operate also in the
underlying regulatory as well as operational context. And
taking a holistic look at that is extremely important, but it
is very possible and is one of the top priorities--it is one of
the most low-hanging fruits there, Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Dr. Jenkins, you
spoke in your testimony about the evidence tells us that caused
these blackouts. I'd like to ask just a quick yes or no answer.
Forbes published an op-ed in February of 2017 which claimed
that a renewably sourced energy captures a larger share of the
power grid. Outages become inevitable. Is this true?
Dr. Jenkins. No, that's not true. If power systems
maintain sufficient firm generation that complement wind and
solar, we can maintain reliability and expand the role of wind
and solar, lowering costs and lowering carbon dioxide
emissions.
Chairwoman Johnson. The Texas Public Policy Foundation
published a statement in February--on February the 16th which
claimed that fossil fuel electric generation didn't fail. Is
that true?
Dr. Jenkins. That's not correct. We had over 30,000
megawatts of fossil generation capacity that was on forced
outage during the crisis making up the bulk of the total
electricity shortfall during the blackout, so natural gas power
plants in particular were the largest absolute contributor to
generation outages during the events.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you. In the same statement, the
Texas Public Policy Foundation claimed that blackouts never
would have been an issue had our grid not been so deeply
penetrated by renewable energy sources. Is that true?
Dr. Jenkins. That's not correct. There was sufficient firm
generation capacity installed that if it had operated as
intended, it would have supplied adequate supplies for the
system. The Texas system operator plans on as little as 1,700
megawatts of contribution from wind and solar power during
extreme winter events such as that occurred in February, and so
just a small fraction of what Texas was counting on to be there
was wind and solar power. What Texans were counting on were
natural gas and other firm power sources, and when those firm
power sources fail, that's when widespread blackouts can occur.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. My time is
expired. I'll now call on our Ranking Member Mr. Lucas for 5
minutes of questions.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair. My home district in
Oklahoma was also impacted by last month's winter storms and
great interruptions. And while data is still being collected,
one thing is clear. No single energy source, be it coal, wind,
or natural gas, carries all the blame. The fact is a diverse
supply of affordable, reliable energy sources is essential to
the success of our power delivery system.
Ms. Garza, Mr. Torres, how will the adoption of new energy
sources and hybrid energy systems affect how Congress and the
Federal Government should be addressing grid security and
resilience? And whichever one would care to go first.
Ms. Garza. Well, you said my name first, so I guess I'll
go first, Mr. Lucas. You--your comment was dead on. It--we all
benefit from--I believe we all benefit from a wide variety of
energy sources, and so with that we have to recognize common
causes of failure across all of those sources. But just having
more and different types of generation should prove to be more
reliable rather than relying all on one.
Mr. Lucas. Mr. Torres?
Mr. Torres. Thank you for the question, Representative
Lucas. What I see is that the evolution of renewables here,
we're still at a state where we're not putting the same
expectations on those renewables as we have on some of the
legacy baseload types of generation or other fossil generation.
For example, you know, I gave a testimony not long ago on black
start, so putting those kinds of requirements so we can start
to build that in to some of the new emerging technologies is
really important.
One of the other differences is, as renewables are coming
into play a bigger part of our energy portfolio, they're not
located as just centralized generation plants but also as
distributed resources. So now we can generate power, you know,
at--near the loads at homes and businesses, and that gives us
different opportunities to use renewables for things like
microgrids to provide some local resiliency for critical loads.
So this is actually--the new technologies are giving us new
opportunities and potential that we haven't had before with
strictly centralized generation.
Mr. Lucas. This Congress I plan to reintroduce my bill,
the Securing American Leadership in Science and Technology Act,
which calls for the doubling of funding in DOE's Office of
Science. Ms. Garza, what research is needed for technologies
like advanced sensors and controls to assist the grid in
emergency response?
Ms. Garza. So the--so some of the challenges we face in
terms of the outages and how those curtailments are managed,
they are managed in a very blocky manner if you will. And how
that works is a device in a substation is open, cutting off
electricity to hundreds if not a couple of thousands of
customers. And those actions are required to be taken very
quickly, and that's how, you know, over the centuries we
realized how to do it.
But technology exists to allow those very fast actions--I
believe exist to allow those very fast actions to occur in a
more granular level. We don't need to take out a whole feeder
at once where along that feeder you could have some critical
loads, there are some noncritical loads, there are some, you
know, differing levels of reliability requirements for all of
those customers. And by knowing that across your system, it
seems like we could manage the reaction or the response in a
much more granular and a much more targeted level than we're
able to do now, and that in my mind requires software sensors,
you know, all the whizbang stuff that needs to exist to allow
that to occur.
Mr. Lucas. Mr. Torres, in the time I have remaining how
can fundamental research in areas like materials science and
advanced computing support this work, this effort?
Mr. Torres. I believe that there's opportunity to develop
more inherently resilient materials that will comprise the grid
of the future, so building your resilience into the system from
the ground up, make it an inherent element in how we operate
and how we design our systems. There is opportunities with
things like artificial intelligence to help us better assess
with forecasting information how to optimize operation of the
grid. We can also utilize distributed computing to help us
manage and operate the grid much differently than we do today
where we operate in very, very centralized control
architecture.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. And I will ask
the Clerk now to assist us in going to our Members for
questions.
Staff. Mr. Bera is next.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and to the Ranking
Member, for convening this hearing. Obviously, very timely and
incredibly important.
I also, you know, appreciate the Raking Member's comments,
but, you know, if we take the politics out of this, it's not,
you know, one type of electrical source versus another versus
another. It's what can we do to create redundancy here and
redundant sources. And if we could remove the politics, you
know, we could let the science and entrepreneurial spirit of
America address these issues. And, you know, far too often it's
the politics that prevent us from recognizing that our climate
is changing, that we're having more extreme events that are
occurring similar to the winter snowstorm in Texas but also in
my home State of California. We see increasing wind events that
have led to, you know, wildfires, you know, they have now led
to rolling blackouts when we see the wind starting to pick up.
And, you know, that is unfortunately going to become more
common, not less common.
Part of the reason we have introduced in the last few
Congresses the Grid Security Research and Development Act was
we do have to make those investments in research in both the
physical security of our electrical grid but also the cyber
risk that our electrical grid faces. And, you know, I'm pleased
that the Chairwoman and the Ranking Member, we passed it out of
Committee and we passed it out of the House twice last year,
did not quite get across the finish line, but we're going to
reintroduce that act, which is bipartisan and, you know, get
that through the Senate and get that to the President's desk.
And we think that would be a big first step.
You know, maybe a question for Dr. Tierney. You talked
about the Academy and some of the recommendations that the
Academy was making in terms of research but also security.
Could you expand on some of those recommendations and, you
know, if we were to prioritize where we ought to focus, you
know, what your recommendations would be?
Dr. Tierney. Thank you for that great question,
Representative Bera. And speaking on behalf of myself, I think
this--the bill that you plan to introduce is a very powerful
tool to help with security and resilience in the face of
cybersecurity events and other kinds of events as well.
So the 2021 report called ``The Future of the Electric
Grid'' included a number of recommendations regarding
congressional authorization, appropriations, and DOE
implementation of RD&D related to cybersecurity in particular.
First, one of the things that we called for was--is the
updating periodically of research and development roadmaps with
regard to cyber. The world is changing very fast in this way,
and it--at the moment, the research agenda is not keeping up
with the changes that are in place. That would involve a number
of things associated with capability to visualize what's going
on in the grid, information detection and controls, sensor data
in order to capture that kind of information, critical needs
for a workforce in this area that is really up to snuff. There
are very serious needs in terms of developing the expertise.
I know you have limited time in here, so I'll stop there
and follow up if you'd like.
Mr. Bera. OK. Fantastic. You know, it occurs to me that,
you know, one of the--you know, our energy rates in California
obviously are higher than the rates in Texas, and, you know,
while the Federal Government doesn't dictate what States
charge, you know, our user rates are higher because, you know,
we have tried to create that redundancy and so forth. And, you
know, my impression is Texas rates are lower because they had
chosen not to, you know, do some of the physical measures to
protect against these extreme weather events.
Again, I understand the independence of Texas and, you
know, we can't go in there and tell them you've got to raise
your rates and--what levers do we have, you know, again,
wanting to protect the citizens of Texas from another extreme
event like this? And, again, I don't know who best to answer
that question, but, you know, what are things that we could do
to compel Texans to do the right thing to protect their
citizens?
Dr. Tierney. Well, it is the case that Texas is
independent from a--from Federal supervision under the Federal
Power Act on rates, but for reliability purposes, Texas is
under the supervision of the North American Electric
Reliability Council, and that has implemented authority from
Congress through the FERC to address reliability. So there is
room there under current authority to put much stronger
incentives at least for Texas to adopt different behaviors.
Mr. Bera. Right. Just, again, knowing many Texans, my
preference isn't to tell the Texans what to do. Congressman
Sessions would get mad at me if I did that. But it's to work
together as the United States of America to make sure we
protect all our citizens.
So with that I'll yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
Staff. Mr. Posey is next.
Chairwoman Johnson. Mr. Posey.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. And I really appreciate
Congresswoman Johnson for holding this hearing.
My questions are for Mr. Torres. Grid security is American
security. Do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Torres. I do.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Any component plugged into the grid
must be beyond reproach and ideally a source from trusted
suppliers that are not affiliated with or controlled by or
manufactured by an adversarial country like China. This
approach will support our energy independence. On page 8 of
your testimony you rightly mentioned that the new rise in
cybersecurity vulnerabilities are real, especially as it
relates to new energy technologies, and one trend that is a
challenge for the system resilience according to you is the
loss in control and knowledge of the technology supply chain.
Could you explain to this Committee how the Department of
Energy has a system reliance challenge involving the loss of
control and knowledge of the technology supply chain?
Mr. Torres. Sure. What I meant to say there--and I can
elaborate on that--is the fact that the grid and the elements
that we're putting in the grid are driven by the market, and we
operate and we procure energy components in a global market.
And even when we purchase equipment and systems today from a
U.S. vendor, that doesn't necessarily imply that everything in
that system or device comes--is all manufactured by that vendor
because they typically buy subcomponents, other software
elements from vendors that can be global. It could be centered
in other countries. It could be chipsets, it could be firmware,
it could be software and other pieces of hardware that comprise
the system that we don't necessarily always have full control
over.
So understanding and providing some sort of guidance for
how we can track what goes into those critical elements,
especially when we're talking about things like black start
and, you know, if the power grid entirely is blacked out, it
could take days to weeks, maybe even longer to restart the--a
large part of the grid. And so we have to be fully aware and
confident in everything that's in the grid when we're
restarting it.
So those kinds of things I don't believe exist, especially
for those kinds of procedures don't exist in the policies and
directions of where we're going with some of the newer
technologies. We don't have the same expectations for some of
the new technologies yet. We've been managing nuclear power
plants and coal plants and gas plants for a long time, and we
know how to do that, but we don't necessarily understand it as
technologies are evolving what we need to do for things that
may be added to the grid in the future.
Mr. Posey. Yes, I hope that we can all agree it would be
stupid for us to have power grids full of Chinese chip
components. On May 1 of 2020, former President Trump signed an
Executive Order 13920 to prohibit the acquisition of
installation of certain bulk power system electrical equipment
sourced from foreign adversaries that pose a demonstrated undue
risk. Are you familiar with the bulk power Executive Order that
was signed and suspended by the current President until April
20th with Executive Order 13990?
Mr. Torres. Yes, I am.
Mr. Posey. Do you know if the current Administration plans
to reinstate the Executive order to ensure America's grid
security?
Mr. Torres. I do not know.
Mr. Posey. If you find out, would you be kind enough to
let us know?
Mr. Torres. I will work with the Department of Energy to
provide you all the information that I can.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Mr. Torres. Madam Chair, I
yield back.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
Staff. Ms. Stevens is next.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you so much. Usually those of us in the
North--Northern States make the quips about how our friends in
Southern States, you know, aren't used to cold weather. The
reality is in this case there isn't a quip to make because the
crisis and the event that took place in Texas and in Oklahoma
was catastrophic. And the history books will remember that the
Chairwoman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee
brought us together for this hearing to get an understanding of
the research needs that must go in to making sure that we have
a grid that works. Lives were lost, people were put into tons
of pain, business was impacted, and in the United States of
America this is just something we never want to see, in the
middle of a pandemic, mind you. So I appreciate all the expert
and--you know, expert witness testimony here today.
I did mention that I come from Michigan, and much of our
conversation as it pertains to the grid in my State is focusing
on electric vehicles. And I did want to ask a couple of you--
and I think you all may be equipped to lean in on this--but how
equipped is our grid for the arrival of electric vehicles in
the sense that they are right now comprising one percent of
cars on the road with projection to go much higher than that?
And even if we--you know, I think much higher than we are, we
have to look at grid capacity. So I'd just--I'd be--you know,
Beth, I see you're nodding your head. If you want to jump in,
that would be great.
Ms. Garza. So I think--thank you for the question. It's a
great question. It's certainly one that's being discussed and
deliberated in, you know, the energy policy world. There
certainly are--there certainly is spare capacity currently in
the distribution system to allow, you know, me or my neighbor
to go get an electric vehicle and plug it in and we're--and
that'll be fine. The questions then are, you know, once that
becomes--you know, moves from 1 percent to 50 percent of the
market, where are the stress points? Where do those exist? And
I have every confidence that we can expand the grid and adjust
the grid to manage that.
I think also required is the interaction between, you
know, advance control aspects because, for example, you know,
do you really want to be charging electric vehicles if there's
a person next door that doesn't have electricity to their house
because there's not enough supply, right? We have to be able to
price and value the different uses of electricity, and we need
the systems and software and techniques to be able to balance
that.
Ms. Stevens. Yes, thank you. And let's also just talk--you
know I've got a minute and a half left. Let's just also talk
about--and I'm sure my other colleagues are going to get into
this--but the designing of a cleaner grid. So in a recent New
York Times article, you know, they're obviously reflecting on
1/3 of America's greenhouse gas emissions are accounted for by
transportation. You know, each year the electric cars and
trucks are widely seen as a crucial part of the solution to
climate change. It would also help if the electric grid that
fueled these vehicles got a lot cleaner. Who has some thoughts
about that and some of the ways in which we could make our
electric grid cleaner?
Dr. Jenkins. Representative Stevens, I could answer that
question. Thank you.
Ms. Stevens. Yes, thank you.
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, over the next 10 years it would be
possible if we continue to accelerate the pace of deployment of
wind and solar, which I think we can do as these industries
scale up, to increase the contribution of wind and solar from
about 10 percent of our electricity today to as much as half by
2030. That would significantly help--that would help
significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the
electricity sector, which is the No. 2 total source of
emissions today, about 1/4 of our greenhouse gas emissions, by
reducing the use of coal-fired and natural gas generation even
if we keep the natural gas capacity around as a firm generation
source.
And so we can reduce emissions probably on the order of 70
to 80 percent over the next decade in the electricity sector by
scaling up technologies that are affordable and ready to go
today. And we can use that same decade to proactively invest in
the clean firm generation technologies that will ultimately
need to replace or retrofit our existing natural gas fleet. If
we do that, the power sector can help decarbonize
transportation as well, as you noted, through electric
vehicles, as well as heating through heat pumps.
Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you so much. I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Bice is next.
Ms. Bice. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to all the
witnesses this morning.
This first question quickly is directed at Ms. Garza. You
mentioned earlier that forecasting is based on a 10-year
lookback. Can you expand on that? Because that seems really
unbelievable to me.
Ms. Garza. So the weather conditions, using--so I'll be
upfront and say as a utility industry--and I consider myself
part of that--we're not the most creative folks, and so all we
know to do is to--is what we have experienced. And when ERCOT
looks at their--looked at their seasonal forecast, even their
extreme weather forecast or the demand resulting from extreme
weather for this winter, all they had in their records was the
extreme winter we had in 2011. And that's--that--we--that was a
bad--we had rolling outages then. That was a bad situation.
That was the most extreme we'd seen, and so that was the basis
of an extreme forecast. And, as it turned out, we suffered
something worse than that, so we were not fully versed or fully
aware of what the potential could be. And so understanding that
potential is what I'm--was what I was trying to get at.
Ms. Bice. Thank you for clarifying that point. Mr.
Jenkins, this question is for you. Would you be surprised to
know that there has not been a nuclear reactor started online
in over 30 years?
Dr. Jenkins. No, I would not be surprised. Actually, there
was one reactor that had been restarted the TVA (Tennessee
Valley Authority) brought online, but yes, it's been a long
time since we started construction or finished a project on
time.
Ms. Bice. So how do you think that the adoption of the
newest technology, which is the small cell nuclear reactors,
could actually play into the electric grid and actually address
some of the concerns with availability of electricity on a
large scale?
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, so new small modular reactors could be a
more affordable source of clean firm generation capacity, along
with advanced geothermal energy, hydrogen combustion turbines
or fuel cells, and carbon capture and sequestration on natural
gas or coal or biomass-fired power plants. So all of those
options, which this Committee has supported in the past on a
bipartisan basis, can be developed proactively over the next
decade, can be introduced into the market, made cheaper over
time, and can ultimately help contribute to a more resilient
and cleaner electricity system.
Ms. Bice. I think that my point here is we've talked a lot
about wind and solar but nobody has bothered to talk about
nuclear. And although it's a very touchy subject, I understand
that the dynamics of that, I think it's something we should be
mindful of because nuclear sort of addresses some of the
environmental issues that we see----
Dr. Jenkins. Yes.
Ms. Bice [continuing]. With, let's say, natural gas and
coal. But the newest technology, which is just now coming
around with these small nuclear reactors, actually provides an
opportunity for us to increase capacity pretty greatly
actually----
Dr. Jenkins. Yes.
Ms. Bice [continuing]. With less of an impact overall to
anyone.
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, and if I could just emphasize also there
are research needs that could help extend the life of our
existing nuclear fleet, which is our largest source of carbon-
free generation and a key foundation to build on going forward.
Ms. Bice. And I'm for your deal in investing more in
research. I'm sure this Committee on a bipartisan basis would
also agree with that.
My last question, we talked a lot about the challenges
with Texas and the impact of the natural gas shutdown. This
question is for anyone. Do you believe that the winterization
of the natural gas delivery and production could have prevented
the large-scale failure that we saw? I think it was a 30
percent reduction in delivery capacity.
Dr. Tierney. I think this is a very important issue, and
I'm really glad you brought it up. The incentives need to work
to make sure that the generators are arranging for gas in a
winterized way so that the gas supply can be helpful in
critical periods like Texas just experienced. The National
Academies report calls for a--an effort to make the gas
industry processing production delivery system more reliable
and visible, along the lines of what we already have on the
electric side, so there is a lot of work could be done there.
Dr. Rai. I think something I can add there is in terms of
the visibility I think there is a lot of scope in terms of how
the production happens and how it is impacted. It is--we are
still finding out exactly what the impact was upon production
losses because of winterization. The general answer is yes, it
would have helped, but there's a lot of, you know, information
needs and visibility needs there as well.
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, we----
Ms. Bice. Yes, I'll just close--I'm sorry, go ahead.
Dr. Jenkins. I was going to say and it goes both
directions, so they were losses of power to compressor stations
that are needed to keep pressure up in the gas pipelines as
well, and so the inter-linkages of these two systems is
critical and needs to be explored and strengthened.
Ms. Bice. And I'll just wrap up my closing by saying that
I think that we've learned a little bit about making sure that
infrastructure across the United States, whether it be in Texas
or in California, that we're keeping up with maintenance on
that infrastructure to prevent things like huge power outages
or wildfires from occurring because of the lack of
infrastructure upkeep. I yield back, Madam Chair.
Staff. Ms. Wild is next.
Ms. Wild. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair, for
convening this hearing.
My district is one of the districts in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania has long been an energy leader in our country. And
one of the things that I really wanted to get into is
Pennsylvania is connected to a multistate grid, PJM
Interconnection, which moves electricity from New Jersey down
to South Carolina--excuse me, North Carolina, and as far west
as Illinois covering all or some of 15 States and the District
of Columbia.
Drs. Rai and Jenkins, I wanted to ask you, how can
multistate and regional grids reduce the risk our grid faces
from severe weather and other threats relative to single state
grids? And I'll just go ahead and ask the rest of the question.
You can cover it as you will. What benefits would multistate
grids offer for reliability and resilience as we transition
toward renewable energies like solar and wind?
Dr. Rai. Thank you so much----
Dr. Jenkins. I----
Dr. Rai. Thank you so much for that question, Ms. Wild.
The answers are--there's a lot of questions in there. The last
major studies about the value of interconnecting ERCOT
[inaudible] to the other two grids were done a couple decades
ago or over that. There have been other studies, smaller
studies but really not a very big, significant. Times have
changed a lot. Technologies have changed a lot. All three grids
have experienced increased penetration of renewables. And as
Dr. Jenkins mentioned, that is a trend that is going to only
grow. There is a very strong and immediate need to take a much
more careful leap.
It is just like, you know, how our source of natural gas
helped us in hard times. We reach out for water, for food, for
support. These interconnections were just the same way. If
you're impacted differently, there is a lot of support and
supplies that can act--that can be accessed through these
interconnections. And it actually did happen even during this
crisis for parts of the interconnection bringing in some power
from the Eastern into the midcontinent region as well.
Ms. Wild. Dr. Jenkins, did you want to add something to
that?
Dr. Jenkins. Yes. No, I second everything that Professor
Rai just said. Just one thing to add is that I know that Texas
has deliberately stayed out of the Eastern interconnection or
Western interconnection in order to maintain its independent,
State-run electricity markets. That could continue to be
maintained while expanding direct-current inter-ties with the
rest of the Eastern or Western interconnect. There are some
existing transfer capacities between the two--between the
Eastern interconnect and Texas and between Mexico and Texas.
Those could be extended or expanded particularly into the West,
and to the Western interconnect as well without synchronizing
the ERCOT grid with the rest of the system. And so there's not
really, you know, a tension there between greater--a greater
ability to import and export power and the independence of the
ERCOT market. And I think that's an area that Texas should
consider how much of that investment is worthwhile going
forward.
Ms. Wild. OK. Well, thank you. That's very illuminating. I
also wanted to focus on storage a little bit, which is one of
the issues that energy sector executives in my district talk
about all the time in connection with clean energy transition,
the need for scalable, efficient, and affordable energy storage
so that our grid will stay reliable. How would that kind of
energy storage capacity have lessened the impact of the extreme
weather in Texas?
And my follow-up is what research questions should the
scientific community and DOE investigate to ensure that energy
storage capacity is resilient?
Dr. Jenkins. So I would say that the bulk of the energy
storage capacity we are adding to the grid today are lithium-
ion batteries, the same kind of battery storage in electric
vehicles. Those are very affordable and getting cheaper every
year and provide a lot of flexibility on short timescales over
the course of a few hours.
Unfortunately, in this crisis if Texas had more battery
storage capacity, it would've helped at the beginning of the
crisis, but those batteries would have run out of power on
Monday and, you know, not provided much more beyond that.
So in terms of research needs, you know, there are other
reliability and resiliency threats the shorter-duration
batteries can help with other than these sustained outages and
also longer-duration energy storage technologies that could
provide sustained output for days or even weeks could
potentially play a larger role in these sorts of events.
But ultimately, you know, long events like this require
firm generation capacity that can sustain its output without an
energy limitation that storage has.
Ms. Wild. Thank you. And, Dr. Rai, did you want to add
anything to that in my last 15 seconds?
Dr. Rai. Just very quickly that there is a very important
need to also look at large-scale demand-side engagement and how
that can be engaged even for longer durations because that's a
very tough nut to crack with storage for a long time.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much. With that, I yield back,
Madam Chair.
Staff. Mr. Feenstra is next. We can't hear you, Mr.
Feenstra. It looks like you have a headset connected.
Staff. Mr. Feenstra, next to where you can mute and
unmute, there's a little triangle or you can click on that and
check and see what audio devices you are using. Still cannot
hear you. No, sir, still cannot hear you.
Mr. Feenstra. Can you hear me now?
Staff. We can hear you.
Mr. Feenstra. Sorry about that. I just wanted to say thank
you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member Lucas. Before I start, I
just wanted to thank each of the witnesses for their testimony
and sharing their extensive research and educated opinions with
us.
You know, the weather this February in Iowa, you know, we
saw a lot of the drastic things. Our temperatures dropped below
28 below 0. We had 24 inches of snow. Part of my district, yes,
we saw rolling blackouts and it was a pretty big deal. It's
important that we all do what we can to protect and modernize
the grid that we have to ensure the resiliency and protect from
these large-scale rolling blackouts.
So the question is for Dr. Jenkins. You highlighted the
importance of clean electricity to an affordable transition to
a net zero emissions economy in your testimony. My district in
Iowa is one of the top wind energy areas in the country. New
wind and solar generation is in our region but is tremendously
bottlenecked by the transmission constraints. Mason City, a
town in my district, will be the home to one of the two power
converter stations for an organization called the SOO Green
HVDC (high-voltage direct current) Link transmission line. This
line will power renewable energy from Iowa into northern
Illinois with--being connected with a PJM power market.
So this is my question. How do we create transmission
lines like this that create redundancy and increase clean
energy availability and transport this energy to densely
populated regions like the East Coast and Chicago and things
like that? We're trying to do this in Iowa, but again, we have
a tremendous bottlenecked that is going on with our
transmission.
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, as you know in Iowa and across much of
the country we have an incredible American resource in the form
of wind power, as well as solar energy potential across much of
the country, but to use that effectively, we have to be able to
bring that energy from where it's generated to where we consume
it. It's much the same as with our natural gas and oil
resources in the country or our coal resources where we have to
build the natural gas pipelines and the rail lines to bring,
you know, natural gas and coal to where we need it.
And so a modern transmission system that is built to
export wind and solar power from where it's cheapest to our
cities is a critical piece of an affordable and more resilient
electricity system that will benefit economically those
exporting regions.
And there are research needs as well that could help us
improve the cost of direct-current transmission lines, the
converter stations and other components of those systems, as
well as identify cheaper ways to underground lines, which could
help reduce public opposition to expansion.
So it's a--maybe I'll defer to Ms. Tierney for more on the
regulatory side of things, but there are significant research
questions there for us to think about as well.
Mr. Feenstra. And that's a great point. I mean, this line
is an underground line running adjacent to the railroad
system----
Dr. Jenkins. Yes.
Mr. Feenstra [continuing]. So it's a perfect line, secure
and everything like that. I'm going to ask any one of you. I
mean, what incentives would you look at it to try to create
private-sector dollars to create these transmission lines?
Dr. Tierney. Could I start by saying that in most
instances it's not financial incentives that are the problem
with bottlenecking the lines. It is really related to ensuring
that there is public participation in the process and ensuring
that there are regional issues that are taken into
consideration in the siting of new transmission lines.
The National Academies report has requested that Congress
enact and declare a new national transmission policy that not
just is about resiliency and reliability but it's also about
opening up regions of the country with very high-quality wind
resources, for example, and that that is something that should
be taken into consideration when States and the Federal
Government are acting to approve lines.
The SOO line is pretty amazing in terms of how it was
developed and sited, and I think it's a great example of the
kinds that we should see in the future.
Dr. Rai. Mr. Feenstra, if I could add quickly, one of the
great examples of infrastructure investments in Texas has been
bringing much of the wind that is generated in the western side
of Texas into the load centers much to the south and the east,
and that was done over a period of about a decade with over $7
billion of investment. And that required as--just as, you know,
Sue mentioned, a lot of public participation, as well as a very
long and detailed regulatory process to get into that. But it
was done and it has played a tremendous role in diversification
of the energy system here in Texas and will be important in the
future as well.
Mr. Feenstra. Yes, thank you for both of your comments on
that. I absolutely agree. I think the other big issue is a
regulatory issue with SOO Energy and these organizations that
are trying to do transmission lines. They're really struggling.
It takes years to get regulatory approvals on these things, and
if we could turn down that timeline, that would be fantastic.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Bowman is next.
Mr. Bowman. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member
Lucas, and thank you to our witnesses.
Dr. Rai, you emphasized a need for better communication
and coordination in events like what happened in Texas and the
need to organize a voluntary reduction of demand. When it comes
to threats to the grid and energy shortages, do you have
additional thoughts on how we can design emergency preparedness
efforts so that they are truly community-driven and equitable?
Are there any precedents for how this can work well that you
have in mind while crafting your testimony?
Dr. Rai. That's a great question, Mr. Bowman. I would like
to just remind as--I was, you know, with my family during the
crisis, and it was in utter chaos after a couple days in the
household. Literally--and there was very little coordinated
information that was coming to us. We were banking on neighbors
and, you know, other friends for any little bit of information
other than high-level system information.
When--in times of--there is a lot of precedents. For
example, in times of major hurricanes, there is a lot of great
work that has happened in this country over the last several
decades. There is a lot of great infrastructure and significant
investment that goes on into weather forecasting and emergency
system preparation. When ahead of time information is shared,
then people pair up, people get ready and leave, get to safety.
It does tie back to security concerns and in particular
that is an added complexity in the electricity system. If an
event like this further gets complicated, as was mentioned by
Dr. Torres, that in events like this further in the restart
process, in the black start process you have additional
cybersecurity-related threats, that can really complicate
matters a lot. So, you know, I would say when multiple events
can really get out of control, really focusing on those events
and crafting solutions that take those matters into
consideration.
Dr. Jenkins. Could I just add to that briefly----
Dr. Tierney. Well, on the equity question----
Dr. Jenkins. Sorry, go ahead, Sue.
Mr. Bowman. Please.
Dr. Tierney. Well, on the equity question there are things
that utilities are doing around the country in vulnerable areas
where there are disadvantaged populations. There are
prepositioning of community heating or cooling centers where
there's--that that will remain connected to the grid as a
critical service area. There are prepositioning of crews to
help with addressing restoration of service. And those are all
part of a resilient grid, you know, planning and getting it
ready for when you need it, and that's really important for
folks who just really need electricity for heating and cooling.
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, I was just going to echo that, that it's
not just the resilience of the system but also our preparedness
to respond when accidents and crises do strike that leads to
the human cost of these crises, and so anticipating these kinds
of extreme weather events and better preparing for them,
particularly with a focus on the most vulnerable populations,
can make a huge difference in the--you know, the economic and
physical human toll of these kinds of events.
Dr. Rai. Mr. Bowman, very quickly, one other point----
Mr. Bowman. Yes.
Dr. Rai [continuing]. Of the story is how much local
community and local leaders got together and really got the
State and our communities through this. It was one of the
biggest, most powerful untold stories, but the truth is that in
events like this, which might actually get more frequent, we
cannot let it down to the households and the communities to
always fend for themselves. There is need for Federal and State
action at a very high level.
Mr. Bowman. OK. Thank you all very much for those answers.
I yield back my time.
Staff. Mr. Obernolte is next.
Mr. Obernolte. Well thank you very much to our panelists.
This has been a fascinating discussion. My first question is
for Dr. Jenkins. You said something in your testimony that I
found very interesting. You attributed a lot of these failures
to a failure to require contingency plans, and you said some
interesting things about risk when you draw an analogy with
insurance policies. So I wanted to ask you about that risk,
because, in my home State of California, one of the risks to
power generation is earthquakes, and what you quickly find is
there is no way to completely insulate power generation from
that risk. You know, you have to accept that a certain severity
of earthquake is the one that you're planning for, and that,
you know, that anything beyond that is going to affect your
resiliency. And so I'm wondering, you know, how do we parse
this risk? I mean, at what point do we say that we want our
grid to be 99.99 percent resilient, but not .999 percent
resilient because it would be too expensive? How do we do the
math on that?
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah, I do think it's a challenging equation,
and the threats that each region faces are going to be
different, and that's one of the things I tried to emphasize in
the testimony. So for Texas it might be these extreme cold
events, but elsewhere it's wildfires, or earthquakes. So I'd
say there's two things. One is to think about the relatively
cost-effective measures that can be taken to push back that
failure mode, so that it's a little bit stronger earthquake
before things go down, or a little bit colder temperatures
before the system fails, and there are a number of these
measures that are quite affordable. You know, winterization of
wind turbines, for example, heat tracing of critical sensors
and feed pipes, for example, as resilience to cold, that
could've been taken in Texas, indeed were pointed at in
previous reports, and in many cases were just not taken or not
maintained.
And so there are some--first some affordable things that
can be done to push back the breaking point. And then the
second thing, which I think we're emphasizing in the response
to Congressman Bowman's question, is that we also need to think
about how we respond, and I think in earthquakes that's, you
know, something California is well prepared for, right? The--
you do know that earthquakes are a risk, and there are
emergency and contingency plans in place. And I think what
climate change means is that we have to check our blind spots
on those kinds of, you know, weather-related risks because, you
know, if the 2011 storm in Texas was used as the high water
mark for, you know, for the threat, and the reality was that
that was inadequate to plan for the severity of, you know, what
could've been possible.
So that's where future climate research that could
better--help us better understand how those extreme threats are
evolving, and what steps could be taken to better prepare for
them would be very helpful, because the past----
Mr. Obernolte. Sure.
Dr. Jenkins [continuing]. As I said, is not a good guide
for the future anymore.
Mr. Obernolte. Right. Well, I think your point is that
there were steps that could and should have been taken in Texas
that were reasonably cost-effective, but I think everyone needs
to realize that a 100 percent resilient grid is statistically
impossible, and at----
Dr. Jenkins. Exactly, yeah.
Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. Some point you're going to get
to a level where the additional cost is not worth the reduction
in risk. So----
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah. And----
Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. There's always going to be a
point at which, you know, the grid could statistically fail.
Dr. Jenkins. That's right, and that's why I'm--in the
response side of things too, because it's a question of cost
and the, you know, the risk your mitigating, and if you can use
operational strategies and responses to these crises when
they--when systems do fail to minimize the cost, then that also
means you're less vulnerable as well, so it's both sides of the
equation that we have to pay attention to.
Mr. Obernolte. Right. Thank----
Dr. Rai. Mr.--if I may add a couple points here? I would
just want to remind that there were three major things that
could have been done that did not really require a massive, you
know, long-term investment or rethinking. I mean, I had already
pointed out--you know. Winterization does also include engaging
with demand, as well as, you know, very simple things, as, you
know, what really is your critical load, right? Keeping track
would have been very simple.
Something I think is very important to keep in mind, as I
mentioned in my testimony, the scale of the damages, right? You
know, we cannot just look at, you know, what was, you know,
what was the value of the loss to--there are damages to water
infrastructure, there are economic damages, there are
governments, you know, local governments failing, and when you
bring those things in, early estimates are putting that over
$100 billion, and my back of the envelope calculations say even
if you were to require winterization of the entire gas and
power infrastructure, it is not going to be of the same state.
It's going to be an order of magnitude lower, right? So, you
know, you need to keep both sides of the equation in mind to
really find out what the balance is.
Mr. Obernolte. Sure, yeah. I think we all can agree on
that. And, Dr. Rai, while I've got you here, let me ask a last
question. You said something in your testimony I thought was
very interesting, which was that one of the biggest failures,
in your opinion, was a lack of voluntary demand reduction. And
I just wanted to ask, you know, how we would go about affecting
voluntary demand reduction, because the traditional way is to
do it through market pricing, which happened in some parts of
Texas. And I think in retrospect we look at that and realize
that it was too quick, people didn't realize the high price
that they were paying for power, and that probably that's not a
good way of going about it in the future. So how should we go
about it?
Dr. Rai. That's a great question. Voluntary reduction
doesn't mean it should be free, you know, it--just that, you
know, it was not--you can't enforce it, but when there are
disruptions of this scale--and just as you mentioned, you
cannot completely 100 percent proof things, so we should be
expecting disruptions like this here and elsewhere. In those
types of situation, really engaging in messaging, and engaging
that demand becomes very important. And I have offered--I don't
pretend to have all the solutions, but that's so important,
such a big possible part of the question, that it needs to be
studied further.
Mr. Obernolte. Yeah. Well, in other parts of the country
we have voluntary reduction programs where, in return for a
lower electric rate, large industrial consumers agree to, on
demand, reduce their consumption, right? But I don't think that
that is on a scale that would be big enough to solve the
problem in Texas. So, it's something that certainly bears
further discussion, because I don't see how we get from where
we are to where we want to be.
Dr. Tierney. And much more social science research.
Ms. Garza [continuing]. In on that. I'm sorry, Sue. If I
could chime in on that, you know, ERCOT is a summer-focused
electric system, and we do have significant demand programs
reacting and responsive to the--in the summertime. And one of
the limitations was the, you know, the limitations of those
programs and those services, their availability in the winter,
so----
Mr. Obernolte. Well, great. Well, I see we're out of time,
but thank you very much for your testimony. It's been a
fascinating discussion. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Casten is next.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, Madam Chair, and it's so nice to
see so many old friends on this panel from my prior life in the
energy world. Want to start with a couple questions for Dr.
Jenkins, a couple short ones, and one sort of medium one. First
one, El Paso had about the same weather. Did they have any
outages in this recent period?
Dr. Jenkins. I don't believe there were any rolling
blackouts, but I could be wrong about that.
Mr. Casten. Is there a simple reason for that?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, I'm not sure it's a purely simple
reason, but they are connected to the rest of the Western
Interconnect, and so they could draw power from much further
away, and conditions were not quite so cold.
Mr. Casten. So they're outside of ERCOT?
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah. They also, I think, took more
proactive steps to weatherize their system, and I understand
it.
Mr. Casten. So, to that point, I'd like to ask unanimous
consent to introduce a document for the record. It's entitled
``Outages And Curtailments During The Southwest Cold Event Of
February 1 Through 5, 2011'' from FERC and NERC. Dr. Jenkins,
are you familiar with this report?
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, I am.
Mr. Casten. It strikes me that some of their
recommendations talking about what should have happened in
1989, and weren't done in 2011 and is it safe to characterize
this report as saying that the events that recently happened in
Texas were not only foreseeable, but were actually foreseen?
Dr. Jenkins. Yes, I think that's correct. You could almost
do a find and replace for the dates in the 2011 study and
replace 1989 with 2011, and 2011 with 2021, and it would still
read, you know, very similar to the reports that I'm sure will
be released after this event. It's kind of eerie.
Mr. Casten. Well, I raise that because I really want to
impress on my colleagues to please read this report, because
there is an understandable political bias for everybody to say
we couldn't have seen this coming, and we did, and we need to
make sure that we incorporate those recommendations.
Somewhat meatier question for you, and I do want to get
one question for Dr. Tierney, so I apologize--brief here, the
North American Reliability Council imposes all sorts of
requirements on load serving entities on the electric grid that
have--requirements for backup generation, and redundant
transmission, and one in--1 day in 10 years outage
requirements, you know, all those details. Is there an
equivalent standard for natural gas infrastructure?
Dr. Jenkins. Not that I'm aware of, but I'd defer to the
other panelists if they know more.
Mr. Casten. Well----
Dr. Tierney. No, there is no such reliability organization
or standard for the gas industry.
Mr. Casten. So as we get to grids that are more gas
dependent, should we be thinking about something like a
standard like that for the gas industry? Because it strikes me
that that's the weak point in our system. And, Dr. Tierney, I
have a follow-up question for you, but since you jumped in, go
ahead.
Dr. Tierney. Yeah. I want to make sure to highlight the
recommendation of the 2021 National Academies study on the
future of the grid, where we call for Congress to do exactly
that. So it's a very important thing, given this
interdependency between the two energy systems.
Mr. Casten. So I want to pivot there, and, Dr. Tierney,
I'm glad you jumped in, because, as a fellow former New
Englander, the--I've always thought of ERCOT as being the New
England ISO with less interconnect and more electric heating,
as far as the dynamics that affect it. And, you know, I mention
that because we have these issues where, when systems get
tight, gas is preferentially dispatched for heating, as it was,
except that in New England there isn't this huge surge of
electric heating load that comes on.
And as we think about how to do what we must do to get to
a zero carbon future, we've got a national policy that broadly
talks about let's get to zero carbon in the electric sector as
soon as we can, and then let's ``electrify everything.'' And
Texas is in many ways sort of a microcosm, if not all the way
down that path, but the beginning of it, because loads that are
done--that are served with other fuels in the rest of the grid
are significantly served with electricity in Texas, and we've
got that constraint on the system.
As we talk about an infrastructure while going forward,
the--given as the, you know, if my math is right, you know,
roughly--a little less than 40 percent of the total energy
used--this country for electricity, almost 50 percent is for
heating, in the industrial--commercial industrial sector. If we
are going to electrify everything, and we are going to shift to
a zero carbon electric grid, the implication is that we are
massively increasing our generation fleet, we are massively
relocating the generation fleet, and we're massively relocating
where the load is, and we'd better be talking about
transmission.
So what should we be thinking about--this--set aside who
pays. What is the quantum of money we need to be thinking
about, round to the nearest $10 billion if you need to, to
invest in a transmission system that is actually going to
enable us to connect clean generation to an electrified load?
Dr. Tierney. I don't have my number at my fingertips, but
I would be happy to provide you with information after the
hearing, if that would be helpful. I completely agree with you
that transmission plays an absolutely critical role here. We
know from many NREL studies, where Dr. Torres is located, that
bigger regions interconnected, and transmission-enabling those
bigger regions to perform, is really important. Where you are
living today, there are these various interconnections across
different regional transmission organizations. Those need to be
bulked up, and certainly New England is interested in enhancing
its transmission capability to a variety of diverse areas where
there are high quality--in a stimulus package there can be
things that Congress would adopt as part of financial
incentives to get shovels, or, let's see, electrical wires put
in place on the system.
Dr. Jenkins. If I could add to that, Representative
Casten, the Net Zero America study that I helped publish at
Princeton, which looked at this transition over the next decade
toward a net zero emissions economy, estimated on the order of
$350 billion in incremental investment in transmission over the
next decade alone. That'd be about a 60 percent increase in
transmission capacity over the next 10 years. This is a huge
undertaking, a huge opportunity for investment and job creation
as part of an infrastructure package.
Mr. Casten. All right. I'd love to follow up with all of
you. I'm out of time, but I do just want to leave this to
comment here that the scale of what we are talking about in
transmission in our infrastructure plan is a tiny, tiny, tiny
fraction of that, and we don't start to grapple with the
numbers you're talking about, we're going to be wrong-footed.
So let's continue the conversation. Thank you, and I yield
back.
Mr. Torres. Mr. Casten, if I could just throw something in
there? There's a set of electrification future studies that
we've been conducting with the Department of Energy that really
helped you--helps us understand how the loads will grow across
the different sectors, and that would be very useful in the
planning. Thank you.
Mr. Casten. Thank you.
Staff. Mr. Garcia is next.
Mr. Garcia. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, and Ranking Member Lucas, for pulling this
together, and thanks to the witnesses. This is an absolutely
critical discussion, and what we saw in Texas last month was a
tragedy. It was heartbreaking, and, in my opinion, was
something that we, as Americans, should have been able to
prevent.
I represent a district in Southern California that these
types of scenarios are not foreign to us, unfortunately. It's
not necessarily the extreme cold, but in our case it's the
extreme heat, and it's the winds, that have led to, in my
district, close to 30 power outages in the last--call it 10
months. We don't live in Venezuela. We live in the United
States of America, yet our utilities behave, and the public
utility companies responsible for power generation in our
State, behave as if it is Venezuela. These problems are a
product of challenges provided by Mother Nature, but it is
mankind, and the folks responsible for our utility companies,
and those who represent us in government, who are responsible
for the failure. We have failed to overcome the challenges that
Mother Nature has provided, and I resonate with the comments by
my colleague, Mr. Casten, that this is a repeated lesson
learned over the last several decades.
In my district we lose power when the winds get above 30
miles per hour. That's not a scenario that one would call a
force majeure. That's not an anomaly, especially not in
Southern California. That happens on a very frequent basis.
We've lost lives, we've risked thousands of lives, we've been
surrounded by flames while we have no power, and we've been
effectively not only losing our power, but also our water,
because many of my constituents are on wells that are
electrically driven.
So my question to the panel, and I think we can start with
Mr. Torres, is how do we ensure that we're not playing whack-a-
mole here across all 50 States and our territories? How do we
ensure that what we saw in Texas doesn't happen in other
States? Maybe not for the same reasons, maybe for different
reasons, and that these lessons learned that you are collecting
as a result of the incidents in February in Texas are being
disseminated? And it may not be for cold weather, but this grid
hardening and the lessons learned, what venues, what media
forum, summits, and/or discussions are you having to make sure
that the lessons learned from Texas, California, and other
States are being applied to the rest of the United States so
that we're not playing whack-a-mole here indefinitely?
Mr. Torres. All right, thank you, Mr. Garcia. I can't
speak to all the things that are going on. I can talk to some
of the things that we've been doing within--in realm of the
Department of the Energy through the GMI activities and grid
modernization--those are strong collaborations across the
industry with the utilities, with the vendors, the various
stakeholders. And I fully agree with you that we really have a
patchwork of perspectives and policies across the different
elements of the grid, and there needs to be more communication,
discussion, as to what are the roles, responsibilities, and the
implications of those differences? Because we're all trying to
achieve a common good here. We all want our lights to stay on.
We want to avoid major events like this, and so we need to
understand what should each part be for every member? What can
we be doing? And what are the changes that we're--that the
different participants are implying? How could that affect the
overall resilience of the grid? And can there be opportunities
for shared costs, shared investments? Those kinds of
discussions I totally agree need to continue so that we can
avoid and mitigate some of these kinds of disasters.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir, and I would just submit to
this body, and all of us at the Federal level, that our
investments in research into the grid hardening and expansion
efforts should include not only the conduits of power between
cities and generation plants, but also conduits between
entities and bureaucrats who are responsible for making sure
lessons learned are proliferated as well.
I personally believe that we need to hold the public
utility companies accountable for this. This is negligence.
This is loss of life. This was foreseeable in many cases, and
we as Americans deserve better than this. I thank, again, the
Chairwoman for opening the aperture on this a little bit
further, and I just want to reinforce to my colleagues that
this is not a problem unique to Texas. We will lose more
Americans in other States as we start seeing some of these
incidents expand across the Nation. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Foster is next.
Mr. Foster. Well, thank you, and first, to my colleagues
from Texas and to some of our witnesses, I feel your pain, as I
too had a daughter and son-in-law trapped in Austin, and living
off their automobile battery for days. And I'd like to mention
their No. 1 recommendation, which is that everyone in Texas be
given at least a rudimentary understanding on how to drive a
car on roads after a snow or ice storm. OK, not the subject of
our hearing, but an important point.
Now, Mr. Torres and Mr. Jenkins, you mentioned a number of
threats to grid reliability, including weather, EMP, wildfires,
and others. Many of these can be ameliorated by undergrounding
the utilities, an approach which carries multiple secondary
benefits like eliminating eyesores, improving real estate
property values, you know, preventing wildfires, and so on. So
what are the promising directions of Federal R&D into lowering
the cost of undergrounding utilities? You know, I'm thinking
of, like, swarms of robots that toil away underground to bury
utilities, both in urban and rural areas, or just simply lower
cost conductor/insulator power conversion strategies for high
voltage DC lines, and so on.
You know, are there specific programs that have been
defined for--that could absorb increase Federal funding for
this research, you know, given that industry is pretty
conservative in what it's willing to invest in? You know, what
would an underground power transmission moon shot look like? So
any one of you want to take a stab at that?
Mr. Torres. I can't say that I'm an expert on underground
DC systems. One of the biggest challenges is the access in the
siting to that. There definitely can be further investments to
advance the various technologies, to improve on that, to
improve on the conductor materials, and so on. There also can
be done things at a local level. You know, the--underground
lines can, you know, appear at the transmission and
distribution level as well. There are places where flooding
could be an issue. So you really need to understand where this
kind of technology makes sense as well, and if it will actually
resolve the issue, and weigh out the costs overall.
But I believe in looking at a portfolio of options,
including DC lines, including undergrounding, including
microgrids. So I think we're at a point in the evolution of
technology, and research, and information here that we have
many more possibilities, so I would just caution that we not
select just one particular pathway.
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah, maybe just one thing to add for the
Committee is to understand that direct current lines are a
little bit like the--getting on the highway, where you can only
get on and off at certain on and off ramps, and those are the
DC--you know, AC to DC converter stations, that we need to hook
up these lines to our synchronized AC grid. And there are
significant opportunities for innovation in cost reductions in
those converter stations which could allow us to make better
use of HVDC lines embedded within our broader AC transmission
system, so I think that is an area for research that could be,
you know, increased funding could go a long way.
Mr. Foster. Yeah. Well, if there had been specific plans
made for, you know, a program that could absorb significant--
larger funding, and, you know, cost production research,
basically, because it seems like a big part of that technology
has really not changed in the 1960's. And I think, you know, if
you look for example, at the cost production in microwaves, you
know, we bought a microwave oven, which is, you know, a
magnetron in a metal box with a timer, and that's, you know, a
drop from $250 of 1960 dollars to about $42 today, you know,
not through revolutionary technology, but simply step by step
cost reduction, and I think that that's really an area where we
could benefit from investment.
And if in a moment I can have an estimate of my time left
from the staff, I would--it would be useful.
Staff. 1 minute, Mr. Foster.
Mr. Foster. OK. So many of the really destructive
scenarios to the grid, you know, whether they're cyber attacks
or accidental, have to do with messing around with
synchronizing the phase or frequency of the AC generation and
distribution systems. You know, in contrast, DC transport
systems, you know, can be protected by relatively simple
systems, you know, like diode clamps, over-voltage protection,
so on, that don't rely on software that can be corrupted, and
can be much more easily made immune to natural and artificial
electromagnetic pulse events and so on. Has this been looked
at, really, the benefits in terms of disaster resilience, of
high voltage--or DC systems generally compared to AC systems?
Dr. Tierney. Could I answer very briefly by saying that
there has been a lot of research on the technical and
regulatory issues associated with HDVC--DC lines. But I think
your question and comments really calls out for asking DOE to
do a moon shot type road map for that kind of research that
would really take things over the hump. As one thinks about the
expansion of the system that is going to be required, and the
natural resistance that people have to the visual effects of
new power lines, I think it is a really important area of
work----
Mr. Foster. Thank you, my----
Dr. Tierney [continuing]. From a scientific basis.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. And so I will--happy to collaborate
with any of my colleagues on brainstorming what that would look
like. And my time is up, and I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Babin is next.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, thank you so very much. Really
appreciate you witnesses being here to talk about something
that is so important.
When Winter Storm Uri swept across and through Texas,
thousands of my constituents, and millions across the State,
found themselves in life and death circumstances, without heat,
without water, and access to essential goods, in the coldest
storm in modern Texas history. We must address the failures and
subsequently support policies that make sure that this
catastrophe never happens again. I'd also like to thank Mr.
Foster for his suggestion, because many Texans do not know how
to drive in these conditions, thankfully, because they're so
very rare in the State of Texas.
But our energy sources must be predictable, dependable,
and affordable. Unfortunately, the national trend of increasing
regulatory policies and green energy subsidies has led to
States, in this case Texas, incorporating more unreliable power
into the grid while decreasing reliance on proven and
dependable base load energy resources. We must recognize the
limits of energy sources such as wind and solar. If Texas had
been on the grid that was 100 percent renewable, as many
continue to advocate for, this weather scenario would have been
much worse. Thankfully natural gas, which is a vital
contributor to our Texas grid, would carry the lion's share of
the load of this energy emergency.
And so, Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to submit for
the record a one-page fact sheet from the American Exploration
and Production Council, which details the role of natural gas
during this February's winter event.
Chairwoman Johnson. Without objection.
Mr. Babin. Thank you. So what is the solution? I firmly
believe that market-based solutions would better ensure
increased grid resiliency. As Pat Woods, previous FERC
Chairman, said recently, I can assure you the competitive model
is the better way to bring price, service, and technological
innovation benefits to the customers.
And so let me also briefly mention that many continue to
say the source of the blackouts was Texas's insistence on being
part of an independent grid, thus depriving it of ample power
from local States and ``wise'' regulation from the Federal
Government. But joining the Federal grid is not the solution,
and would have far-reaching consequences, which would include
greater market volatility, and much higher prices.
My question to Mr. Garza, if the oil fields have attempted
to become more green friendly, they have electrified. Should
there be more research and development into microgrids or non-
grid electricity? Part of the reason gas couldn't get out of
the ground during this storm was because the devices to get it
out of the ground simply ran out of electricity. Do you believe
that forcing these different types of energy sources to all
become electric is the right direction to be heading in?
Ms. Garza. Well, sir, thank you for your--thank you for
that question. Yes, there certainly were situations where gas
production and transportation facilities where--which are
dependent on electricity found their electricity cutoff. And I
would attribute that to a failure of communication, or a
failure of understanding by the local distribution utility that
they indeed had a critical gas production facility connected to
their system. An example that came out during the recent
legislative hearings here in Texas is that one of the utilities
had about 30 gas facilities on their critical load list before
the event, and during the event they identified 130 more. So
clearly there's a failure of identification, and, given the
interdependence of electricity and gas, the codependence of
electricity and gas, we need to figure out a way to improve
that communication and coordination.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, ma'am. And then do you also believe
that the current trajectory of research and development funding
is doing enough to ensure that we achieve better grid
resiliency?
Ms. Garza. Well, I, you know, I always think there's more
to do and more to learn. Clearly we, you know, we failed that
test here in Texas, and so we need to learn from those lessons,
and we need to figure out how those lessons can be broadly
applied to the rest of the country. And, to me, it seems we do
that through appropriate research and dissemination.
Dr. Tierney. Mr. Babin?
Mr. Babin. All right, thank you very much, and I think--
yes, ma'am?
Dr. Tierney. I just wanted to say, clearly the National
Academies committees on resilience of the grid and the future
of the electric system believe that there needs to be at least
a doubling, if not a tripling, of parts of the research chain,
so I encourage that to your attention.
Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you very much, and I see that I'm out
of time, so I will yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Staff. Mr. Kildee is next.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you. Well, first of all, thanks for
holding this hearing. It's obviously an important hearing. I
would like to address--and this is something that my colleague
from Michigan, Ms. Stevens, raised, and it has to do with the
effect of the development of electrication--electrification of
transportation of the--of our entire fleet of vehicles over
many decades will have on grid resilience, or what factors we
need to consider when it comes to that inevitable development.
And so I wonder if, Mr. Torres, if you wouldn't mind perhaps
reiterating, because I missed part of the answer that you
gave--or that was given when Ms. Stevens raised this issue, if
you would mind just giving us some of the thoughts that we need
to consider regarding grid resilience in the era of obvious
development and movement toward electrification of vehicles?
And then I do have an interesting question as to whether
or not there's another side to that coin, especially when it
comes to heavy duty vehicles, when we think about the fact
that, in a case like this, perhaps on a smaller scale, we would
have present on the ground, in communities, large--essentially
batteries on wheels. Fully charged vehicles, school buses, for
example, that might be of some utility in providing temporary
relief in the case of, you know, of a blackout of some type. So
if you could just touch on those two areas, I'd appreciate it.
Mr. Torres. Yes, thank you, Mr. Kildee. So what we're
seeing in some of the studies I mentioned, early
electrification future studies is--there's a high potential for
transportation to be a significant new load on the grid, and we
see that there would probably need to be some changes on--at
the distribution level, when--where we charge, but even
charging management systems so not everybody would come home
and charge at exactly the same time. Maybe people are charging
at night, but you can do it at a different time. So all those
kinds of things are definitely achievable with some more
research.
With regards to things like vehicles providing support,
you know, it's--there's a potential with fleets, with bus
fleets, that are maybe only driving certain times, say school
buses, but then they sit there most of the day. During that
time they could potentially offer some energy to the grid to
help support it during time of need. Other, you know, light
duty vehicles, we'd need to understand in the future, when you
have dynamic generation locations, where are these vehicles,
and can they plug in to some, you know, some portal where they
could offer some support to the grid? Those kinds of things
would still need to be looked at, business models and so on.
But given the fact that, you know, transportation is on a
path to at least some level of increased electrification, I
think it offers opportunity for us to look at how it can be
used to add grid resilience, what are the implications if we
don't take into account the growth for light duty and heavy
duty vehicles? Light duty vehicles at 150 kilowatt level
charging, you know, heavy duty up to a megawatt scale charging,
could have large impacts on the grid. At the same time, if we
do it wisely, could also potentially add some support.
Dr. Rai. Mr. Kildee, if I may add a couple points? The
increasing trend in electrification for transportation
highlights one additional interdependence. We already talked
about how gas, electricity, and then food and water are
connected. We are seeing another, transportation sector,
getting--so the interdependencies are going to get more
complicated. So that's point one. Second, your observation is
absolutely right on. The University of Texas have had
demonstration project that have showed that using buses and
similar--what you mentioned, storage--you could actually
support fire stations and similar infrastructure for certain
durations of time, right? You know, not for very long. And the
third piece is your comment around large vehicles. That brings
an additional element, which is hydrogen. Especially it's very
important for Texas, there's a lot of scope there, but it also
adds to that diversification of, you know, energy sources, and
supply during a, you know, critical time. So, you know, that's
a really very promising avenue as well.
Mr. Kildee. Well, thank you. I appreciate those comments.
Only 2 percent right now of American vehicles are electric
vehicles, but we know where the market is going, and we
actually have this moment in time to prepare for that future,
to begin to set the stage for not only greater resilience, but
less dependency, and a cleaner environment, so this is a timely
hearing. I thank the Chairwoman for raising it, and I
particularly thank the panelists for really good testimony. So
thank you, and I yield back.
Staff. Mr. LaTurner is next.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Lucas, for holding this hearing, and I want to thank the
panelists for being with us. Like many of its neighbors, the
State of Kansas was hit hard by the winter storm in February.
Subjected to sub-zero temperatures, many were without power and
heat for days. Power and fuel sources that we rely on every day
failed, and we weren't prepared. We cannot allow this to happen
again. It is my hope that this hearing will shed light on
future opportunities to strengthen and fortify our power grid
against threats both physical and cyber, and examine how we can
leverage our country's research and development capabilities to
make those opportunities a reality.
I'd like Mr. Torres and Ms. Garza to address this
question. It's a two-part question. How interconnected are the
various regional grids? And, while you consider that, the
connectivity of the grids, what is the probability that an
outage or a cyber event in one part of the country can have a
cascading effect on the whole system?
Mr. Torres. OK, I'll go ahead and go first. Thank you, Mr.
LaTurner. So there are only, you know, a small set of DC ties
interconnecting the eastern and western interconnect, and then
there's also a tie between--I believe there's a Texas and an
eastern interconnect. Not a lot of power flows between those
systems at this point. They don't really depend on power flows
going across. So, at this point, not a lot of dependency, from
that perspective.
The--with regards to some of the cybersecurity potential
issues here, the potential consequences would depend on the
type of event, where the entry was, what system was
compromised. The grid is really made up of a whole bunch of
small grids, there's a lot of different utilities, so, you
know, we're always as--you know, we're as strong as our weakest
link, so having some consistency on the expectations in
policies, and even technologies and approaches, is really good.
I'd say as a whole we're doing a pretty good job at the bulk
grid level. NERC has jurisdiction over the larger utilities.
You know, they're providing power over the bulk grid, the high
voltage level.
Once you get down to the distribution level, you know,
they are doing the best they can as well. They are, you know,
developing standards and so on, but they don't necessarily have
the same level of resources. So finding ways to levelize and
provide--given that, you know, potentially a connection
anywhere can be a connection everywhere if cybersecurity is not
managed appropriately.
There was a--I guess the first power grid outage caused by
a cyber attack in 2015 in Ukraine. Could that happen here?
Don't know. We've been, you know, in my career I've been
looking at this since the 1990's, and the grid has evolved
considerably since. I will say that I don't believe that's
we're paying attention--enough attention to what the threats
are ahead, because we don't know how quickly the cyber threat
is evolving. It's evolving very, very quickly, so we need to
really move toward more inherently resilient systems, knowing
that we don't always know where that next attack is coming
from, or even what it might be, but the system would be
resilient, be able to isolate and detect something's wrong, and
be able to reconstruct, and get the system back up and running
as soon as possible.
Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate that. And, Ms. Garza, if you
don't mind?
Ms. Garza. Yeah, sure. From an interconnected standpoint,
we've talked about Texas's limited direct current
interconnections with the Eastern Interconnect, and a few with
Mexico as well. The thing of these different grids is that they
are operated synchronously, that is they're moving together,
and the DC connection allows that separateness, allows those
synchronous operations to be separated.
If--so in this situation, if we had some more connections
to the Eastern Interconnect, I'm not sure that that would've
been very helpful because all of the regions around us to the
north and to the east were suffering their own issues, as you
just alluded to in Kansas, and all the way down into Louisiana.
The cold weather descended across the center of the country. So
incrementally I'm not sure there would've been much opportunity
for improvement. If you were talking about sort of national
bulk high capacity, the HVDC lines, you know, broadly across
the country, yes, that might have been valuable. I'm not sure
you could justify that expense just on a winter resilience need
in Texas, or more locally, but there are other benefits of that
kind of interconnection as well.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you both very much. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Beyer is next.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much. I'd like to start with Dr.
Jenkins, and--with a sort of foundational existential question,
Dr. Jenkins. Now, you're a MIT Ph.D., which I very much
respect, so here's the question. We have this feedback loop. We
burn fossil fuels, which are amazingly efficient, lots of BTUs
concentrated--which leads to climate change and global warming,
which leads to extreme events, and then we adapt to this by
burning more fossil fuel. Does this make any sense, and is this
not the equivalent of smashing your hand with a hammer,
noticing that it hurts and is bleeding, so keep hammering
harder?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, it's a little bit--and the challenge is
a little bit, to use a different metaphor, like trying to build
the airplane while flying it, right? So we have to keep our
critical infrastructures and our economy going as we transition
as quickly and affordably as possible to a cleaner energy
system that breaks that link. And so we can't do that
overnight, but we can move much faster than we have
historically, and that means both greater reliance on variable
renewable resources, as well as cleaner firm technologies that
can supplant fossil fuels, or could even allow us to continue
to use fossil fuels with carbon capture and sequestration.
Mr. Beyer. So, Dr. Jenkins, let me continue on this theme.
And I know you're not a regulator, you're a scientist, but
Governor Abbott said in a statement yesterday that he'd asked
for and accepted the head of the PUC's, the Public Utility
Commission's, resignation, and this was after the Texas Monthly
reported that he had told out of state investors, think Wall
Street, on a telephone call that he would work to ``throw the
weight of the Commission behind stopping calls to reverse
billions of dollars in overcharges for wholesale electricity
during the storms.'' It turns out that ERCOT had forgotten to
roll back its prices from the sky-high levels as the power came
back on. And--independent agency originally thought it was only
a $16 billion overcharge. They've dialed it back to $6 billion
in overcharges. So, Dr. Jenkins, here's the thought, was ERCOT
actually designed to protect ratepayers?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, this is--there's a separate question, I
think, is whether the Utility Commission of Texas was, you
know, seeing its primary responsibility as to the people of
Texas or to the investors in the power system. ERCOT runs the
electricity market, but it's regulated by the Utility
Commission of Texas, which now has no members, even to figure
out how to, you know, navigate after this crisis. So I think it
is a shame to see the sort of, you know, vacancy at the
Commission now, at a time when we need regulators to be acting
on behalf of the public.
Mr. Beyer. Although it is encouraging to see a bipartisan
effort to make sure that the ratepayers are protected now,
after the fact.
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah.
Mr. Beyer. Dr. Jenkins, would Texas benefit from a
capacity market, you know, the so-called forward markets, where
we would pay for building capacity, not just for selling
electricity?
Dr. Jenkins. I think that's an important and open
question. I think, you know, we have to be a little bit careful
about thinking about different financial incentives alone as
sufficient to ensure weatherization measures. You have to
remember that a lot of the generators that went out during this
crisis were hedged, so they were actually obligated to pay back
the power that they couldn't generate at the market rate of
$9,000 a megawatt hour. So they had an enormous incentive to be
available, and suffered millions in dollars in losses when they
weren't. So I'm not convinced that a capacity market, which
would provide different incentives for, you know, for providing
firm capacity, would've fundamentally changed those incentives.
The financial incentives were pretty strong.
What I think this was was a failure of regulation,
honestly, to require certain measures that were cost-effective,
and could provide broad public benefits by avoiding these sorts
of crises for the, you know, the catastrophic impacts on the
public writ large that are much larger than the impacts that
any individual power plant would face. So we have a public good
here to reliability, and I think that ultimately requires
regulation to ensure--the benefit of a capacity market is that
it gives you one more point of regulation, where participation
in that capacity market, and getting payments, you know, long-
term payments for capacity could be contingent on compliance
with certain regulations regarding weatherization, and we've
seen those kinds of steps taken in other markets, like New
England, where they require either firm gas contracts, or dual
fuel capacity for, you know, gas plants that can switch over to
oil. So that--it would be another point of regulation, but I
don't think changing the financial incentives alone would be
sufficient.
Mr. Beyer. Would capacity markets have any role in
encouraging the diversification of the energy sources?
Dr. Jenkins. Not necessarily. Capacity markets don't
necessarily lead to greater diversity. In fact, they primarily
benefit natural gas power generators in their current design.
We have to think carefully about how we design these long run
incentives. They're ostensibly technology neutral, but as Jacob
Mays, and Dick O'Neil at FERC, and others have shown, the
specific single contract that they offer is well-aligned with
the risk profile of gas generators, and other generators face
different risks, and so we need more long-term products to
address the different risk profiles that they each face in
order to ensure more diversity.
Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Kim is next.
Ms. Kim. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member, and
Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this hearing today. You know,
unfortunately, my home State of California heavily relies on
imported power from other States to help field electricity
demand. According to the Wall Street Journal article from
August 2020, California's grid operator must find 10,000 to
15,000 megawatts replacement power during a period where
generation of solar and wind power falls off. The combination
of wildfires, and increased demand due to the COVID-19
pandemic, and rising temperatures were a perfect storm, causing
power outages in California last summer. And, regrettably,
our--as our State looks to purchase more energy from other
States and abroad, California plans to shut down the Diablo
Canyon power plant at a time when we need a good mix of energy
sources.
So I would like to pose the question to all witnesses--
grid scale storage will be a key technology driver for security
and resiliency as new energy sources are incorporated into the
U.S. power grid. So I would like to hear from each of you your
perspectives, are there areas of this research that are better
off left to the private industry?
Dr. Jenkins. If I could begin, maybe? I think that the
history of American innovation around particularly energy
technologies is one of active public and private partnership.
So the innovation often occurs from private sector businesses,
but they're critically supported throughout the entire
evolution of that technology by investment on behalf of the
public in R&D, in demonstration, in early market opportunities
in the forms of procurement, or tax credits, or standards that
drive technology. And all of those together help provide the
innovative opportunity for the private sector to develop these
new technologies. So it's really partnership, and it's one that
America excels at, and it's got us cheap wind and solar power,
electric vehicle batteries, LEDs (light-emitting diodes),
hydraulic fracturing, you know, for--and horizontal drilling,
all kinds of technologies that are more than paying off the,
you know, the investment that the public has made in those
technologies.
Ms. Kim. Great. Anyone want to chime in too?
Dr. Tierney. Yes, please. Representative Kim, I'm--I was
raised near you, in Redlands, California, and went to school at
the Claremont Colleges, so it's--I know your district well. And
one of the things that complements what Professor Jenkins just
said, with regard to the important role that the Federal
Government plays in supporting basic science and applied
science on storage, among other things, is the kinds of things
that have been done in Southern California to have really a
demand pull associated with storage technologies, and moving
those into the markets. So those two things in conjunction with
each other are really part of the innovation cycle that can
pull resources into the market and lower costs over time. So I
think there's a lot to learn from California's experience on
this.
Ms. Kim. Thank you. I would like to thank Dr. Jenkins and
Dr. Tierney for your responses. Let me get onto the second
question. How does transitioning to the smart grid, or adding
Internet of Things capabilities to industry or control systems
influence security and resiliency in the energy sector? How
should we think about incorporating new technologies, like
artificial intelligence, or the Internet of Things, in
developing more efficient battery storage units?
Dr. Tierney. We really need to set better standards for
assuring grid security protocols related to cyber and other
issues, because all of those Internet of Things could have the
opportunity to create intrusions into the grid's performance.
So there's regulatory in the form of standard-setting that are
uniform around the country, but there's really a tremendous
amount of R&D that would be subject to your Committee's
jurisdiction associated with simulation tools that provide
different angles on how there are the interactions between
Internet of Things devices and local grid operations. There's a
long list of things that I've included in my testimony that
would address the kinds of things that you're talking about.
Dr. Rai. If I might add, Ms. Kim, very quickly, there is a
flip side to it. As we talked about, smart devices, smart
devices, smart meters, could have really helped a lot in terms
of very smartly cycling non-critical load, which actually was
frozen, and so there were, you know, large parts of the
population without power for several days, as well as in terms
of predictive capability. You mentioned artificial
intelligence. There is a lot of that could be brought to really
get a look ahead. And the final point I want to make is, you
know, we do want to separate this event from what can be
managed through even grid scale storage. You know, this was an
event that lasted for 3 days, and, you know, 7 days in many
parts. That's, you know, there are very few types of single
storage scaled, including, you know, very large--storage that
can be brought, but, you know, you can't cite that everywhere,
so there are other types of solutions. You know, the scale of
this problem is, you know, a little bit on the higher side of
the spectrum.
Mr. Torres. And----
Ms. Kim. Thank you.
Mr. Torres. --Representative Kim, if I could add something
really quickly, maybe to bridge between your two questions?
It----
Ms. Kim. Um-hum.
Mr. Torres [continuing]. Really highlights the importance
of government research and government involvement. The industry
alone will not have the understanding of the evolving threat,
and the national security implications of the work that they're
doing. They also tend to focus on more near term research, and
so, tying back to the universities, tying to the applied and
basic research at the National Laboratories, with the national
security in mind, I think is a key as we move forward. Thank
you.
Ms. Kim. Thank you. I know my time is up, so I want to
thank all the witnesses for your thoughtful responses. Thank
you. I yield back.
Staff. Mrs. Fletcher is next.
Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you, and thank you to Chairwoman
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas for holding this hearing
today. It is incredibly important for those of us in Texas, and
for the entire country, to understand what happened, and to
craft legislation on this Committee to invest in and encourage
research and development in grid technology, and reliable
generation technology. I very much appreciate the witnesses
sharing their expertise and time with us today, and in written
testimony, which has been so helpful.
As one of the Members of this Committee who lived through
the Texas winter storm without power for several days, without
water for several more, with a boil water notice for many days
after that in my district in Houston, I want to underscore the
seriousness of these cascading failures in both the physical
market and the financial market. Today's hearing is important
in making sure that we don't fail to respond in Congress. So
many issues have been raised throughout this hearing, and there
simply is not time for me to ask all the questions I have in
these 5 minutes, so I will submit several questions to the
witnesses for the record, and I look forward to your responses.
Like Dr. Rai, I was--the temperatures in my own home were
in the 40's, and I think even the 30's, during the event before
I found my thermometer, but I was lucky. I had a fireplace, and
I had warm clothes. Not very far from my house an 11-year-old
boy, who had been overjoyed at seeing his first snow on Monday,
froze to death in his own bed overnight. And he was not the
only Texan who froze to death in this storm. Others died from
carbon monoxide poisoning trying to keep warm. My constituents
who are doctors told me they had never seen anything like the
number of people they treated for carbon monoxide poisoning
during this time.
What we saw in Texas during the winter storm was a
catastrophic failure of our electric grid, a catastrophic
failure that didn't have to happen. There were ample warnings
from both FERC and NERC about how the Texas grid was vulnerable
to winter resilience issues that had been documented in detail
after the 2011 winter storms. But years of inaction by our
State legislature, our Governor, and his appointees at the
Public Utility Commission left our State with a grid that
focused on market profit at the expense of a resilient grid.
While affordable energy should be a key priority of our grid
system, Texans saw firsthand the catastrophe that occurs when a
grid is unable to function and provide life-saving power when
people need it the most.
My colleague, Mr. Bera, recognizing that Texans have a
well-known independent streak, mentioned that Texans perhaps
choose to pay less than people in California for their energy.
But in recent Wall Street Journal analysis has found that for
two decades Texas customers have paid more for electricity than
residents of States served by traditional utilities, $28
billion more since 2004.
Ms. Garza, given your years of experience at ERCOT, I'm
interested in hearing your perspective on Texas's failure to
plan for peak demand in the winter. And I won't be able to get
to all of my questions, but I do want to focus on this because
we haven't talked about it in this hearing. It's my
understanding that when ERCOT planned for peak demand that
would require distributors to shed load, it was done under the
assumption that such an event would occur in the summer, when
demand is typically highest. When ERCOT ordered distributors to
shed load during the storm, the regional allocation for where
loads had to be shed was geographically centered around areas
where the summer demand would be the highest, particularly in
Houston and in South Texas, despite the fact that the north in
this case was experiencing higher demand. Is it your understand
that this is the case?
Ms. Garza. Yes, it is.
Mrs. Fletcher. And do you agree with me that ERCOT should
revisit this planning so that it's able to respond better to
winter demand events?
Ms. Garza. Yes, and I think that it's on the list of
things to work on. The only thing I would caution you there is
that, as you get further south in the State, you--there's more
electric heat, and electric heat uses lots of electricity--the
inefficient electric heat that generally exists the further
south you go. And so--but factoring that in, and understanding
a more seasonal distribution of load across the State to more
fairly assign those curtailment responsibilities would be an
appropriate step, and one that I think is underway.
Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you, Ms. Garza. With my last
few seconds I just want to mention, and ask this question, in
your written testimony, and in your opening comments today, you
mentioned that in setting standards we should have benefits
that exceed costs, and noted the infrequency of cold weather in
Texas is part of that analysis. With the deaths of at least 70
Texans, the illnesses of many more, with tens of billions of
dollars in damages to people's homes and businesses across the
State, my question is whose costs are you referring to in your
analysis? And, unfortunately, I'm out of time, so I'll take
your response in--written response, but I really appreciate all
of you being here today, and, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Gonzalez is next.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking
Member Lucas, for holding this timely hearing today, and our
distinguished witnesses for joining us. One thing I like about
the Science Committee is we actually talk about facts, unlike
the narratives that I see coming out on social media. In one
case, when I flipped on my social media, which I'm one not to
do, folks on the right saw it as the Texas blackouts, which
were tragic, as justification for criticisms of wind turbines,
and renewable energy generally. On the left, those opposed to
federalism--free market ideas criticized Texas's deregulated
energy market because some companies to prioritize cost over
safety.
Of course, the answer is both charges are true, partially.
Power generation companies in Texas took a market risk and
chose not to harden their facilities. I think we highlighted
that today. And given the high variance of wind and solar,
relying on renewables as a primary source of energy increases
costs to consumers, can export jobs, and weakens energy
independence. What we need is a system that works both ways.
Renewable energy serves a purpose when it correctly supplements
higher density energy sources. As cheaper, more effective
technologies come online, they absolutely should be deployed.
And, given the threat of uncontrollable weather events, Texas's
power generators and utilities should be encouraged to
winterize their facilities, and toughen the grid against
extreme stress.
We should also reconsider our approach to nuclear energy,
which is a big priority of mine on this Committee, and across
this Congress. While nat gas, coal, and renewable energy
capacity plummeted during the blackouts, nuclear remained
relatively reliable, operating at 74 percent of total capacity.
I want to start with that fact specifically, and Dr. Jenkins.
What is it about nuclear that allowed it to do better
relatively? I know it too suffered, but relative to the other
energy sources, is there something inherent to the technology,
or is it coincidental? Just kind of walk me through what it is
about nuclear that allowed it to be a little bit more resilient
through the Texas cyclone.
Dr. Jenkins. I mean, the main benefit that nuclear enjoys
over natural gas in particular is it doesn't need fuel delivery
during these kinds of events, and so it's one less
vulnerability to supply disruptions on the fuel side of things.
You know, the--these--because of the focus on safety and
reliability in the nuclear power fleet as well, there are
considerable efforts and investments made in maintaining the
highest degree of reliability for those plants, and so they
also tend to perform better during these sorts of extreme
events as well because they are, you know, they're
considerably, and justifiably, focused on maintaining the
highest reliability.
I think what the performance of the nuclear fleet also
shows is that the diversity of resources helps decorrelate the
failures, right? If you have 10 power plants that all have a 10
percent chance of failure, but those aren't at all related to
each other, the odds of them all failing at once are, like, 10
to the negative ninth, you know, percent. It's, you know,
infinitesimally small. But if they're all linked up to the same
natural gas system, and that system goes down, or they're all
in the same part of the transmission grid, and that
transmission grid fails, then, their outages are correlated,
and so I think we have to think carefully about how we
diversity the risk exposure. And nuclear has its own risks,
but, you know, there are different--they're different than
those for other power sources, and that improves the resilience
of our system through diversity.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. And, in your opinion, what do you
think the appropriate role for nuclear is when it comes to
generation, and our goals around reducing our carbon footprint?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, I think there's two things to note. The
first is that our existing nuclear power fleet is by far the
cheapest source of clean firm generation capacity that we could
have. Any new source of carbon-free firm generation is going to
be more expensive, with rare exceptions, than maintaining our
existing nuclear fleet as long as it is safe to operate. So
that's the foundation upon which we can build toward a lower
carbon and cleaner energy system. And then, in the future,
newer nuclear power plants are one of several types of clean
firm generation technologies. At the moment none are licensed
for sale, right? We need to see----
Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah.
Dr. Jenkins [continuing]. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory
Commission) process through for the new scale reactors, for the
GE-Hitachi BWR-X, for the others that are moving their way
through the process, and when they come to market, we'll be
able to see if they can compete with other clean firm
generation technologies, like advanced geothermal, or Allam
cycle power plants, or natural gas power plants with carbon
capture, biomass gasification, hydrogen turbines. There's a
whole range of options, and all of those are in a more nascent
state today than other technologies, and so I think the race is
on, and the efforts that this Committee has made in the Energy
Act, and other legislation, to support the development of those
technologies will help propel them forward.
Mr. Gonzalez. So fair to say, in your estimation, nuclear
should play an important role in our energy generation future
in the United States?
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah. I think it already plays an important
role today, and it can sustain that role into the future as
well, especially if the new technologies can be affordably
built, and on time, with little risk, which has been the
challenge so far for the nuclear fleet.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. I hope everyone was listening. I
yield back.
Staff. Mr. Perlmutter is next.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you very much to our Chairwoman and
to the Ranking Member for this panel. You guys are great,
it's--and you've got a lot of stamina to answer all these
questions for this long. I've got a couple, one for the panel
generally. And one of the reasons that I've lasted this long is
that there's a Coloradan on the panel, and so I want to start
with him.
Mr. Torres, you know, you've talked about microgrids a
lot. Explain to me, and to us, you know, how a microgrid, you
know, has helped with the California wildfires, how it could
help with the wildfires that we face in Colorado from time to
time. Let's start with that question. And then I have a general
question to the whole panel. You can think about it. We're
going to do an infrastructure bill, a big one, that's going to
be loads of bridges, and waterworks, and broadband, but there's
going to be an emphasis on the electrical grid. If all of you
could think of a couple things you'd like to see us do, either
regionally or nationally, to upgrade the grid? So--but I'd like
to start with you, Mr. Torres.
Mr. Torres. Thank you, Representative Perlmutter. So first
maybe understand--we should get on the same page about what I'm
referring to as a microgrid. A microgrid is a smaller grid tied
to the bigger grid that can disconnect and reconnect as needed.
And why would you want to do that? And there are some really
good examples with regards to even the recent wildfires in
California. Borrego Springs is a microgrid demonstration. We've
been working with them for quite a while. They have a lot of
issues with transmission line, and the lack of reliability at
times for them. So they needed ways to make sure that we
could--they could keep the local power up and running. With
some local sources, you can use a variety of generation
sources. Renewable solar, different types of gen sets, energy
storage, and so on.
We're seeing the trend for those kinds of organizations
that have a high necessity for very, very reliable power. For
example, military installations have been working this space
for a long time, and there was a big demonstration I was
involved in about 10 years ago called the Spiders demonstration
with--between the military and the Department of Energy. There
are also other, you know, resources--or, I'm sorry, other loads
that really need high reliability power. For example, data
centers. They need to increase the amount of reliability
because some of the computer systems are very, very sensitive
to power.
So I believe in the future we're going to see a lot more
owners and operators of various loads that will want to make
sure that, if there's a loss of a transmission line, or loss of
centralized generation, that they can still operate through. So
I foresee--microgrids would be an important element of the
future evolving grid.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. So, Dr. Tierney, let's go to
you, and----
Dr. Tierney. Well, thank you, because----
Mr. Perlmutter. Yes.
Dr. Tierney [continuing]. I live in Colorado, so you have
a second Coloradan on this panel.
Mr. Perlmutter. Well, let's go to you, and if you want to
talk about microgrids, or how you think, as a general
principle, we can upgrade the system.
Dr. Tierney. Yeah, OK.
Mr. Perlmutter. Give me a couple examples.
Dr. Tierney. Well, and I'm going to talk about it in the
context of a clean infrastructure recovery package, if that's
OK. So I----
Mr. Perlmutter. Sure.
Dr. Tierney [continuing]. Think there could be elements
associated with infusing more dollars into building energy
efficiency. So boring that sounds, but what a difference that
would make if buildings were buttoned up so that houses that
were facing either extreme cold or hot events were much more
able to withstand those kinds of outside temperatures.
Especially doing that in low income areas, and bundling those
two things together, would be very important.
Second, there is a green bank that is now included--I
think it's in the Clean Futures Act. It's the accelerator,
Clean Energy Accelerator. It would be a multi-multi-billion
dollar infusion of support for local investments that deal both
with lowering greenhouse gas emissions with various types of
projects, as well as equity considerations. Another, third,
issue is tree planting in urban areas, where there are real hot
spots. And tree planting in Colorado would not be a bad idea as
well, just to restock the forests. Transmission investment,
we've already talked about, and then finally, in your
jurisdictional authority area, all of these investments in R&D
for grid resiliency at various stages in the process, and to
harden the grid, and deal with cyber security, they're ripe for
inclusion in this package. How's that?
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you very much, and I want to thank
the entire panel. I can't get to all of you, but I want to
especially thank the Coloradans.
Staff. Mr. Baird is next.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Lucas, I really appreciate your cooperation in bringing this
kind of timely Science Committee meetings, and then to have the
talent and capabilities of our witnesses, is very much
appreciated. I always learn something.
We're interested in research, research and development,
and it's a recurring trend, I think, in the industry, per se,
across the country about the need for government, and academia,
as well as private industry, to work together so that we can
continue to be successful and be a leader around the world
using American technology. So the National Labs, I've been
impressed with those, and the things that they do, and I think
it's important that we focus on the kinds of research that you
think are necessary. So I'm going to start with Mr. Rai.
Dr. Rai, what do you think is the difference between
academia research and private industry research? Are there
priorities? Can you help prioritize where you think we need to
go focusing on that research?
Dr. Rai. Thank you for that question, Mr. Baird. One of
the key things that academic research is--that it is long
range, and more basic--as we heard earlier in this hearing,
that typically the private industry also does a lot of
research, but that's really much harder--year to, you know, 5
years, and rarely it is, you know, out--10 years out. But a lot
of the question that you're talking about, not of the research
that can be done, really is--benefit in the long run. We heard
about many computing technologies, about hydraulic fracturing,
about storage technologies, wind and solar, these took a long
view, lot of investment over multiple decades, and then
supported demand for policy as--and so, you know, there's
really this sequencing--there's a lot of interaction, but still
there's a sequencing in terms of both the nature of the
problem, which are more fundamental, as well as the time
horizon that the academic research really depreciates itself,
but it has a very fundamental place, in terms of generating
that diversity of powerful ideas that can then really play out
in the--over time.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Would you agree with the idea that
private industry can't really justify just basic research,
whereas academia, we invest in that basic research, and we
still get a return at some point down the road? It may not look
like important research at the moment, but down the road
private industry kind of picks that up. Is that--have I got an
appropriate analysis of that situation or not?
Dr. Rai. Absolutely, sir. It has played out again and
again in very big ways--in very radical big ways that change
the world forever in multiple sentences. So, yes, sir.
Dr. Jenkins. Congressman, if I could just add to that, the
partnership between universities and National Laboratories also
extends beyond the basic research. There's applied research
programs carried out in partnership with industry that continue
to provide critical incremental innovations that move these
technologies along and make American technological companies--
technology companies, you know, maintain their competitive edge
as well. So it extends into that translational and applied
research realm also.
Dr. Tierney. And especially because some of this grid
resiliency R&D is really a public good, and no private company
can really monetize its investment in R&D for such a broad-
based thing. We really do need R&D in this area federally
funded.
Mr. Torres. Yeah, if I could add something as well, I
think that partnership across academia, where they could focus
on longer term research, basic research, higher risk, where
industry cannot. They need to have a return, something that's a
little bit more certain, with lower risk, and the laboratories
kind of cover that spectrum. One of the roles that we have here
at NREL is providing that bridge, taking, you know, the basic
and applied research, and working with industry, going from,
hey, can we prove this in a laboratory, but can this--to the
next level, can we actually deploy it? How would it deploy, and
can we minimize the risk before it gets deployed in full scale?
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Ms. Garza, you got any comment?
Ms. Garza. So my--no. Short answer is no.
Dr. Jenkins. Could I just maybe add that I just strongly
encourage the Committee to work with your colleagues to ensure
appropriations that fulfill the kinds of authorizations
included in the Energy Act? You've made enormous, you know,
focus on the kinds of innovative priorities that we have, and
we're talking about here, but unless the budget comes through,
it's not going to be something that the labs, and universities,
and private sector can tackle.
Mr. Baird. Well, thank all of you for being here, and I
see I'm out of time, so the Chair will probably cut me off
right quick. Thank you.
Staff. Ms. Ross is recognized next.
Ms. Ross. Thank you so much, and thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, for having this important hearing, and in such a
timely way. I--I'm from North Carolina, and we are no stranger
to odd weather, hurricanes. Today tornadoes are predicted in my
district, and having a resilient energy grid, and a modern
energy grid, is so, so important to not just delivering the
energy every day, but dealing with these severe weather
incidents.
My first question is to Ms. Garza. In your testimony you
speak about the need for better long-term forecasting of
potential conditions. And, as I said, North Carolina's no
stranger to severe weather, including severe winter weather. As
a matter of fact, we--in our integrated resource planning,
winter peaking has replaced summer peaking because of severe
winter weather. I don't know if you knew that about North
Carolina, but it was a surprise to a lot of people. We have
tropical storms, hurricanes, flooding, and--so this can happen
year-round. Could you please elaborate on how improved
forecasting could help utility companies, State and local
authorities, and consumers prepare for extreme weather events,
like the one that happened in Texas, and happens frequently in
North Carolina?
Ms. Garza. Sure. You know, as I've mentioned, the, you
know, the typical pattern has been to just look back at, well,
how bad has the weather been, and let's assume that that's as
bad as it's--it will be, and with additional population,
additional uses, what will my demand for electricity be? And
clearly that was insufficient here in Texas. One of the reasons
for that look back would be for States like yours, in North
Carolina, that are regulated, and they have to justify those
expenses. It's easy to justify, well, I'm going to build for
this, because we know it's happened. And unless there's
additional input that says, well, the risk is larger than what
you've actually occurred, I could see where it would be
difficult for utilities that are reliant on rate-based
recovery, or, you know, regulated rates of return, to justify
additional expenditures. So that's another reason, another
justification, for outside help, you know, input into the
electric utility to make sure that they're adequately planning
for the long term, whether it's heat, or cold, or storms, or
whatever.
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah, and Congressman, this is----
Dr. Tierney [continuing]. I add to that, please? Because
forecasting, and R&D in support of much finer forecasting, has
this long-term component for demand, and it should take into
consideration changes in the climate for sure. But there are
short term operational forecasting issues where integration
between wind forecasts and local effects, heat forecasts in
certain areas, demand forecasts on a couple of days ahead.
Those--and the forecast of outage probabilities of facilities
under different kinds of climate events. Those kinds of
things--that's a really important R&D--for resilience.
Ms. Ross. Thank you----
Dr. Jenkins. And as I----
Ms. Ross [continuing]. Very, very much. Yes?
Dr. Jenkins. Sorry----
Ms. Ross. Somebody else want to jump in?
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. As I emphasize in
my testimony as well, I do think that additional climate
science investment that focuses on this question of how these
extreme weather events and threats are changing, you know, the
probability distribution is moving, and it's those tail events
that are the big threats to our system, and so those just get a
little bit more likely. That has huge implications for how we
plan and prepare our systems, and we need the forward-looking
science to be able to help guide us as the climate changes over
the next several decades.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Dr. Jenkins. My next question is for
you. We--North Carolina's currently No. 2 in solar in the
country, and--so we're interested in clean firm energy. I've
represented solar companies, and actually connecting to the
grid sometimes is the thing that keeps them from being able to
realize their projects. You argue that we don't need every
source of electricity to be reliable all the time, we just need
the overall system to be reliable. In our last 23 seconds,
could you just discuss further how we might be able to do that
with an improved grid?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, I think the critical need is for
technologies that can replace, ultimately, our natural gas
fleet, and our retiring coal, and eventually nuclear power
plants that can provide a similar role as those power plants
play today, but without the carbon dioxide emissions and air
pollution associated with fossil generation today. So that
could be advanced nuclear, natural gas plants with carbon
capture and storage, advanced geothermal technologies. That
could be potentially be very low cost, very long duration
energy storage, although those typically are only a partial
complement or substitute, and potentially hydrogen production,
which could come from renewable sources, could come from
biomass, and it could come from natural gas with carbon
capture, all of which would provide a zero carbon fuel that
could be used in converted natural gas power plants in the
longer run.
So all of those are options, and I think, again, as I
mentioned earlier, the race is on between them to see which
will be developed and scalable, and I think we need a diversity
of those technologies because what works in North Carolina may
not be what works in Texas, or in Minnesota, or in New England.
And so we need a mix of resources that can play that role, the
right, you know, role in each parts of the country.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Bonamici is next.
Ms. Bonamici. --Member Lucas, and thank you to our
witnesses for joining us today. I regret I couldn't be in the
entire hearing, but I care a lot about this very important
topic. And we know that as we transition to a 100 percent clean
energy economy our electric grid will be a central feature of a
comprehensive climate strategy. Our grid needs to be clean,
reliable, and, importantly, resilient to climate threats.
According to a recent report from the University of
California Berkeley an infrastructure build out needed to
achieve a 90 percent carbon would support approximately 550,000
jobs each year, and avoid at least $1.2 trillion in cumulative
health and environmental challenges. Last--I joined my
colleagues on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis in
releasing a bold, comprehensive, science-based climate action
plan reaching net zero emissions no later than mid-century, and
net negative thereafter. Our plan includes many recommendations
on grid resilience, including Congressman Bera's bill, which I
know we're focusing on today.
According to a report from the Government Accountability
Office, GAO, released just last week, the climate crisis could
affect every aspect of the grid, from generation, transmission,
and distribution to demand for electricity, and cost billions
of dollars annually. GAO specifically found that the Department
of Energy does not have a strategy, goals, objectives, or
performance measures to guide its efforts to enhance the
resilience of the grid--climate crisis. And this is of
particular concern to Oregonians in my State because of our
raging wildfire season and other reasons as well.
So, Dr. Tierney, how can the DOE best work with Federal
science agencies to better understand, predict, and respond to
grid threats from the climate----
Dr. Tierney. There are dozens of things that the
Department of Energy should be doing, and I think there is a
groundswell of support for becoming more aggressive on
resiliency issues. There was a wonderful program called the
Grid Modernization Program that was authorized for 5 years, I
think, Juan? Is that right? And continuing and depending that
kind of work, supported--supporting work at the labs, will be
extremely important on these issues.
But also, as you say, standard setting for performance is
badly needed. It's a tough area, when you think about those
different levels of the system, generation, transmission,
distribution, and demand, but hard work needs to be done there.
Thank you for the question.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And following up on
Representative Ross's question, Dr. Jenkins, I appreciated the
reference in your testimony to not needing every source of
electricity be--to be reliable all the time, and instead
focusing on the system, that requires a mix of electricity
resources, all playing the right role on the electricity team--
isn't--important that we think about equitable access to--
affordable clean energy so you can discuss the opportunities to
make our transition to a 100 percent clean energy reliable and
resistant grid equitable for vulnerable communities who have
been on the front lines of the climate crisis?
Dr. Jenkins. Well, I think that the--first I should add,
Representative Bonamici, I was born and raised in your
district, so it's a pleasure----
Ms. Bonamici. I'm honored.
Dr. Jenkins [continuing]. To talk with you. I think that
there are huge benefits--potential benefits to a transition to
a cleaner energy system for all communities, including those
that are currently suffering the most from air pollution from
our current fossil energy mix. You referenced a Berkeley Labs
study on the 90 percent reductions in--or 90 percent clean by
2035 power system. I'd refer you to the Net Zero America study
that we worked out of Princeton as well, which estimates very
similar benefits for--in terms of reduced air pollution,
particularly from the phaseout of our coal fired power plants,
which Oregon is scheduled to retire its last coal fired power
plant later this--in a couple years, and this could result in--
that, and electrification of vehicles, which are the major
source of urban air pollution, could substantially reduce
exposure to air pollution, and save significant lives and costs
for households and communities.
The other thing we have to think carefully about is where
we want to direct investment in the new industries that are
growing to deploy, you know, clean energy, and to manufacture
the products there, and to ensure that those are distributed
across our country in ways that communities in transition
benefit from. And Oregon knows very keenly the challenges of a
large-scale transition. I grew up in the aftermath of the
timber wars, and the, you know, the impacts that the phase-out
of the timber industry had across Oregon communities, and I
think we need to make sure that we're proactively investing in
economic development and diversification in communities that
are currently relying on fossil generation or fossil fuel
production as part of this.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Dr. Jenkins. I'm working on a
national transition legislation, so we really do absolutely
need to focus on those front-line communities. I also want to
mention too, because you're an Oregonian, that we're doing some
really exciting work on marine energy----
Dr. Jenkins. Um-hum.
Ms. Bonamici [continuing]. Off the coast because, unlike
the sun and the wind, the waves are constant, so there's a
tremendous amount of potential to capture the power of the
waves, tides, currents. So----
Dr. Jenkins. Yeah, as--along with floating offshore wind
turbines, which could open up a huge--I mean, the West Coast
has the windiest, you know, highest wind potential in the
country, if we could cost-effectively tap into it.
Ms. Bonamici. Well I'm, of course, working in
collaboration with all our coastal partners. There's--
tremendous amount of potential. Thank you very much, Madam
Chair. I yield back.
Staff. Chairwoman Johnson, all the Members present have
been recognized already, so I think we're ready to close out
the hearing.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much to all of our
tremendous witnesses. We are delighted that you had the time to
spend with us, and I'll thank all of our Members for
participating. Before we bring the hearing to a close, I would
just simply like to say to our witnesses to stay close. We
might have some questions that you might receive, and we
really, really, really appreciate your input.
The record will remain open for at least 2 weeks for
additional statements from the Members, or to submit questions
for our witnesses. And--so now I'll--whatever questions that
our Committee Members might ask witnesses. Our witnesses now
are excused, and our hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:57 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

Appendix I

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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Responses by Dr. Jesse Jenkins
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Responses by Dr. Sue Tierney
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Appendix II

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Additional Material for the Record

Executive summary of a report submitted by Representative Casten
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

[For full report see: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/
2020-04/08-16-11-
report.pdf]
Documents submitted by Representative Posey
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Article submitted by Representative Posey
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Report submitted by Representative Babin
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

[all]
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