VPPs Can Help Improve the Resilience of the Texas Power Grid
Texas is growing accustomed to experiencing system-wide power grid disruptions. The first recent major event was winter storm Uri in February 2021, which left 4.5 million homes in the dark, cost $195 billion in property damage, and caused the deaths of over 50 people due to a combination of factors stemming from generation technology failure (natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind and solar), natural gas shortages, transmission and substation outages, frequency issues, planned generator outages, and a lack of reserve capacity.1 Despite this stark warning sign of a lack of power grid resilience, climate change, along with electrification, economic growth and other geopolitical drivers, has caused increasing uncertainty in business as usual for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
