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Power outages add to woes in water-soaked Texas

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Edward Klump
E&E News reporter

HOUSTON — As rain continues in the wake of Tropical Storm Harvey, Texas is coping with a significant loss of electricity, even if the current outage numbers in and around America’s fourth largest city aren’t as large as might be expected.

And people in areas with heavy damage face the prospect of a power restoration process that could last weeks or longer.

CenterPoint Energy Inc., the main electric wires utility for the Houston metro area, reported more than 105,000 customers — or homes and businesses — without power in its territory as of 10:52 a.m. local time. Remarkably, over 95 percent of the 2.4-million-plus customers in CenterPoint’s service area had electricity as of this morning.

CenterPoint cautioned that it can’t get to everyone to address lost power or assess natural gas issues. It also remains to be seen how much damage has occurred to the company’s infrastructure. Floodwaters need to recede before individual restoration time estimates are available, the company said.

"Our crews are responding to outages throughout our service territory where they can safely do so," CenterPoint said in a statement today. Houston continues to see "catastrophic flooding" and strong winds, it said.

The company said that, in some places, it’s "proactively taking service off the grid in order to avoid long-term damage to our electric infrastructure, which could potentially result in a longer restoration time."

After Hurricane Ike in 2008, many people in the Houston area were without power for weeks after high winds toppled trees and took down power lines. CenterPoint credited its use of technology and an emergency response plan for enabling it to return electricity to over 580,000 customers since Harvey began affecting its territory Friday, even if the outlook for thousands of customers remains fuzzy.

The restoration effort is being aided by advanced meters that pinpoint outages. There’s also the fact that Harvey’s arrival with hurricane-force winds occurred down the Texas coast, although the storm later stalled near Houston and caused massive flooding, periods of high winds and reports of tornadoes.

Ed Hirs, an energy economist with the University of Houston, also described improved maintenance of rights of way for power lines in CenterPoint’s territory. He said it’s remarkable to see the level of electric service across much of the metro area.

"Everyone’s acutely aware that it maintains the social fabric — traffic lights, refrigeration, air conditioning, communications, emergency response, health care clinics, the fuel stations that are open, the grocery stores that are open," he said.

More broadly in Texas and Louisiana, about 288,349 customers were without power in affected areas as of 10 a.m. EDT today, according to the Edison Electric Institute. EEI had reported an outage total of about 310,000 as of 6 p.m. EDT yesterday in a news release on Harvey.

EEI stressed yesterday that some areas along Texas’ coast could be unable to take power service "for weeks or months."

Tom Kuhn, EEI’s president, said that damage assessments were happening and that power restoration progress would occur as soon as it could happen safely.

"At this point, nearly 10,000 workers are dedicated to the response and recovery effort," Kuhn said yesterday in a statement. "This includes crews, lineworkers, and support personnel from the impacted companies and mutual assistance crews from at least 19 states across the country. Additional resources are ready to mobilize to assist if needed to further support restoration."

Patience is appreciated

EEI said the industry was coordinating with the federal government, including with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, who has been in contact with chief executives of companies affected by Harvey.

"As we are all seeing, the devastation and flooding from Harvey are catastrophic, and this will be a long-duration restoration event," Kuhn said.

Entergy Texas, a unit of Entergy Corp., reported thousands of customers without power yesterday and said the number could climb. Its region includes some locations north and east of Houston.

"More heavy rain is predicted for some areas, and these areas have already had over 20 inches of rain," Vernon Pierce, vice president of customer service for Entergy Texas, said in a statement.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s main grid operator, said yesterday that the grid remained in "stable condition" after Harvey.

In a statement dated yesterday, ERCOT said several transmission lines were out of service, including near Corpus Christi and Victoria. Two major 345-kilovolt transmission lines that serve the Gulf Coast region were not in service, ERCOT said.

As of midday yesterday, the grid operator said a little over 6,700 megawatts of generating capacity was offline for storm-related reasons. That included some renewables.

NRG Energy Inc., a major power producer in Texas, went into emergency preparedness at power plants in the Gulf Coast before Harvey made landfall.

"Any time you have this much rain, you will have issues but one of the advantages of our geographically and fuel diverse fleet is that we can look at it from a holistic view and continue to generate the power needed," David Knox, an NRG spokesman, said via email today. "I would also add we have our plants staffed 24/7 with food and cots to allow us to outlast the storm."

Meanwhile, power demand in the ERCOT region has been below typical August usage in recent days as the grid operator noted cooler temperatures and structural damage. ERCOT’s region saw a peak of less than 45,000 MW yesterday compared with a peak of more than 60,000 MW on Aug. 24.

"ERCOT operations will continue to focus on overall grid reliability during the restoration process, while transmission and distribution providers make repairs to power lines and electrical equipment," the grid operator said in a statement yesterday. "Additional engineers have been on site around the clock throughout the hurricane and tropical storm to support these operations and stay in constant communication with transmission and generation suppliers."

CenterPoint asked for understanding as people await power restoration in its service territory.

"Our crews are working and will keep working until everyone is restored," the company said today. "We greatly appreciate our customers’ patience."

Twitter: @edward_klump Email: eklump(at)eenews.net

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

As Historic Flooding Grips Texas, Groups Demand Nuclear Plant Be Shut Down

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Jon Queally, staff writer
Common Dreams

STP Nuclear plant
The South Texas Project nuclear power facility in Bay City, Texas could be under extreme threat from historic flood waters, groups warned on Tuesday. (Photo: STP)

As record-breaking rainfall and unprecedented flooding continue to batter the greater Houston area and along the Gulf coast on Tuesday, energy watchdogs groups are warning of "a credible threat of a severe accident" at two nuclear reactors still operating at full capacity in nearby Bay City, Texas.

Three groups—Beyond Nuclear, South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, and the SEED Coalition—are calling for the immediate shutdown of the South Texas Project (STP) which sits behind an embankment they say could be overwhelmed by the raging flood waters and torrential rains caused by Hurricane Harvey.

"With anticipated flooding of the Colorado River, the nuclear reactors should be shut down now to ensure safety."
—Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition "Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the STP operator have previously recognized a credible threat of a severe accident initiated by a breach of the embankment wall that surrounds the 7,000-acre reactor cooling water reservoir," said Paul Gunter, director of the Beyond Nuclear’s Reactor Oversight Project, in a statement by the coalition on Tuesday.

The groups warn that as Harvey—which on Tuesday was declared the most intense rain event in U.S. history—continues to dump water on the area, a breach of the embankment wall surrounding the twin reactors would create "an external flood potentially impacting the electrical supply from the switchyard to the reactor safety systems." In turn, the water has the potential to "cause high-energy electrical fires and other cascading events initiating a severe accident leading to core damage." Even worse, they added, "any significant loss of cooling water inventory in the Main Cooling Reservoir would reduce cooling capacity to the still operating reactors that could result in a meltdown."

With the nearby Colorado River already cresting at extremely high levels and flowing at 70 times the normal rate, Karen Hadden, director of SEED Coalition, warned that the continue rainfall might create flooding that could reach the reactors. "There is plenty of reserve capacity on our electric grid," she said, "so we don’t have to run the reactors in order to keep the lights on. With anticipated flooding of the Colorado River, the nuclear reactors should be shut down now to ensure safety."

Last week, the STP operators said that safety for their workers and local residents was their top concern, but that they would keep the plant operating despite the approaching storm.

Susan Dancer, president of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, said that as residents in Bay City—herself included—were being forced to leave their homes under manadatory evacaution orders, it makes no sense to keep the nuclear plant online.

"Our 911 system is down, no emergency services are available, and yet the nuclear reactors are still running. Where is the concern for employees and their families? Where is the concern for public safety? This is an outrageous and irresponsible decision," declared Dancer. "This storm and flood is absolutely without precedent even before adding the possibility of a nuclear accident that could further imperil millions of people who are already battling for their lives."

As Harvey hovers over the coastal region, heavy rains are expected to persist for days even as the storm system creeps toward to Louisiana in the east.

But no matter how remote the possibility, said Gunter, "it’s simply prudent that the operator put this reactor into its safest condition, cold shutdown."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.