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January 17, 2025 3 mins
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Speaker 2 (00:01):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yeah, it's going to get cold. Baby is going to
make us cold. Seven twenty two is our time. It
also could make things a little bit snowy, or maybe
a lot snowy. Tom overbe joins us. He's director of
the Texas A and M Smart Grid Center Center Point, says,
everything's fine, nothing to see here, everything's good. But could
storm like this affect the grid, the electric grid here

(00:24):
in Texas, and because certainly we're not going to be
as cold as it is going to be in some
other spots, there's gonna be some cold weather and some
snow in a lot of places here in Texas come Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yes, I would agree at Center Point. I think the
grid is going to be fine. We've added more generation
since twenty twenty one, and as you noted, it's not
going to be as cold as it was in twenty
twenty one.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well. The other thing that that comes to mind, though,
and this is where I guess the jury's out. We
really don't know for sure what this weather events going
to bring to us. We think it's going to be snow,
but there's probably going to be some freezing rain and
drizzle mixed in with that, and that can impact the
power lines.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Right when you get freezing rain, it can certainly impact
the power lines. Most of that will tend to be
at the lower voltage line, so there might be some
local outages depending on where we get freezing rain, but
I don't expect anything major for the grid as a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
What do you make of the efforts that have certainly
Centrepoint got chastised severely a couple of years ago, people
were rightfully upset with the fact that there hadn't been
the proper maintenance and winterization done. Have they taken the
necessary steps? Now? Do you think to basically win a
rise the grid so that even if we ended up
with another freeze like we had two years ago, be
able to withstand that.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, I think the electric utility in this year in
Texas has done a good job of making sure that
the grid is winter rise at least down to a
yeary type of valent. So I think we are good
from that point of view. So yes, I think we've
made good progress. And you know, in twenty twenty one
we just weren't adequately prepared and we lost a lot

(02:11):
of generation and that was the problem. I don't expect
that would occur if we had temperatures like we had
in Uri. Of course this coming week is going to
be cold, but not nearly that cold.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, as long as those wind turbines don't don't freeze,
I guess we'll be okay. Here's what I also wondered, Tom,
And I don't know if you folks have done any
studies on this. I guess as you probably have, but
there's been a lot. There's always talk after major storms
and down power lines about bearing the power lines, bearing
the electric lines. They have to come up somewhere. But
if we did more as far as bearing the existing lines,

(02:44):
we'd have fewer these outages. Is the reason why we
don't do it, is it just too dog gone costs prohibitive.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Right, It's very costly to bury electric lines now. Of course,
a lot of the electric grid is we divide the
grid into the high voltage transmission the lower voltage distribution,
and about half the distribution is already buried. It's just
very inexpensive. It's very expensive to bury distribution lines in

(03:14):
existing neighborhoods because there's so much other stuff and you
have to tear up roads and things like that. So
the newer subdivisions tend to get underground distribution lines at
the higher voltage transmission we can, but it gets hard
to transfer power long distances in.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
A buried line, got you, and of course at a
city as big as Houston, you know with all the
buildings in the downtown area, that it's virtually impossible to
vary those lines. Tom, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
Tom overbe director of the Texas A and M Smart
Grid Center at seven twenty six
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