North Michigan News

Michigan should take Texas' struggles through last week's winter storms, which left millions without power, as a good reason why Michigan lawmakers should think twice about repeating some of the Lone Star State's mistakes, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

"More complete information on the Texas electricity grid is coming out, and the failures and rolling blackouts seem to stem from three major issues," Mackinac Center for Public Policy Environment Policy Director Jason Hayes said in an update to his blog post originally published Feb. 16.

Hayes' update took specific aim at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state's electrical grid and manages the deregulated market for about three-quarters of the state.

Jason Hayes | Mackinac Center for Public Policy

"First, there was poor planning and slow responses on the part of ERCOT, the operator of Texas’ electricity grid," Hayes said, according to the Mackinac Center's website. "Second, decisions were made against winterizing essential generation equipment, despite similar cold-related outages in 2011. Third, extreme and unusual cold weather impacted multiple generation sources: wind, solar, nuclear, coal and natural gas."

The update to the causes of the power issues changed the way in which the issues were reported, but that doesn't change the long-term effects of adjusting the way power is supplied to residents in Texas, Michigan and other states.

"For the good of Michigan residents, Michigan's electricity utilities need to return their focus to safe, reliable generation options," Hayes' update concluded.

The update follows an open letter that Hayes sent earlier in the week, urging Michigan state lawmakers to learn from Texas' mistakes and the energy crisis in that state. The letter offered Michigan lawmakers recommendations about what Michigan can learn from the current weather-related difficulties.

Early in the crisis, many, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, blamed the lack of sufficient energy on the failure of wind turbines and other forms of renewable energy. Those claims have since been debunked, including reports in The Texas Tribune, USA Today and the Houston Chronicle.

At the height of the storms, Fortune offered a more thorough outage explanation, reporting that most of Texas' energy in its very complicated and largely privatized grid, comes from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants, "which together make up more than two-thirds of power generation during winter."

Despite the changing explanations for Texas' power issues, Hayes maintained that that wind turbines in Texas have proven "reliably unreliable" and should not become the basis for any power grid.

"'Reliably unreliable' may work in mathematical models or when it’s sunny and 75 degrees, but it is potentially dangerous when the real world gives us cloudy and minus 20 degrees. It’s also a poor argument in favor of the drive to build more renewables," Hayes wrote, according to the Mackinac Center's website. "Spending billions to build energy sources that cannot be depended on when people need them most is irresponsible."