Lubbock Is Jumping From a Reliable Raft Onto a Burning, Sinking Ship

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Cassandra of Greek myth had both a gift and a curse from Apollo: she would tell true prophesies, but would never be believed. What a horrible nightmare to see disaster for her people looming, but to be shrugged off as crazy. I feel this way about Lubbock's impending switch to the ERCOT grid. I'm sure I'm not the only Texan who does.

After a disastrous, destructive and deadly winter for Texans on the ERCOT grid, Texas is at an elevated risk for outages this summer, particularly between 3 and 8 p.m. Now, 3 p.m. is a very hot time of day during a typical Texas summer, and temperatures tend to stay toasty until well after the sun sets. I'm afraid for folks and pets who are sensitive to the heat.

The 2021 "Summer Reliability Assessment" from the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) warns:

 ...that Texas is expected to see above-normal temperatures this summer and a higher risk of drought across much of the state, potentially increasing demand for power and putting more strain on the grid.

In spite of faring much better than the rest of the state because we were not on the ERCOT grid this past winter, we're still switching over during this Memorial Day weekend. ERCOT is being rolled in like an enormous wooden horse, and even though we know it's full of deadly danger, we're still welcoming it into our city gates.

Of course, ERCOT thinks ERCOT is perfectly fine, and that we should just really love our exciting new enormous horse decor:

In recent weeks ERCOT has said its own summer assessments show a less than 1% chance of forced outages this summer, even under new “extreme demand scenarios” ERCOT planners have considered in their forecasting following the damaging winter storm.

Here's hoping this time Cassandra is wrong and everything will be just fine for Troy/Lubbock.