HOUSTON — A newly released list of power outages during the recent winter storm reveals dozens of power companies are now disclosing hundreds of outages that weren’t publicly disclosed before.
Those companies initially did not agree to make their information public, and they hadn’t been required to do so until a recent Texas Public Utility Commission order required the disclosure.
Last Thursday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, released a list of 217 power generators that reported 1,662 outages across Texas. ERCOT’s revised list now includes 280 power plants with 2,599 outages during the winter storm.
In the Greater Houston area, the initial ERCOT report listed 24 power plants and 190 total outages. The newly released data shows 30 Houston-area plants had 300 outages combined.
The new power plants include Sweeny Cogen in Brazoria, NRG Cedar Bayou Development Company’s Cedar Bayou 4 in Chambers County, Oxy Vinyls’ Diamond Shamrock Battleground, Ho Clarke Generation’s PES1, Texas Petrochemicals and Shell in Harris.
Oxy Vinyls’ facility previously failed in 2011, making it part of the 50 percent of Houston-area plants that failed during last big freeze and this one.
Neither list contains the reason why the power failures occurred. That information continues to trickle in through testimony at state legislative hearings in Austin.