Editorial: As technology improves, could local power generation ease dependence on the grid?

Texas is four years removed from the February 2021 freeze and power grid failure that crippled the entire state. Homes and businesses throughout the state, including the normally tepid Rio Grande Valley were without power for as long as a week at a time when sub-freezing temperatures made heat generation a matter of life and death.

The freeze exposed shortcomings all across the state’s power system, as both power generators and transmission lines froze. Even without that crisis, calls for Texans to conserve energy during times of both extreme cold and extreme heat, to reduce the risk of overloads and blackouts, have always been routine.

Improving our energy infrastructure takes time, and money. The state legislature currently is moving more legislation intended to improve our power grid, which runs separately from the two systems that connect the other states on the mainland. Congress recently debated a bill that would have called on our state to become part of the national system because our grid, run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, has proven to be not so reliable.

At the same time, continued advancements in power generation, and storage, have led growing numbers of people to generate their own electricity.

System operators work in the command center of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas in Taylor. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News/TNS)

Those efforts include home solar panels that many people might be familiar with. Improvements both in the panels and in batteries that store the energy are making the option more attractive — and more cost-effective.

But the largest growth is in the commercial sector. H-E-B, for example, incorporates solar panels into its new stores. This seems a viable option for other businesses; imagine large malls, shopping centers and stores such as Walmart utilizing solar panels on their vast rooftops.

Even nuclear power could be making a comeback on a smaller, localized scale. Dow Chemical recently applied for a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a small, on-site nuclear reactor to power a manufacturing complex under construction in Seadrift, Texas, a coastal down south of Victoria and Port Lavaca. Another small municipal nuclear plant could be built soon in Rockport, Mich. A bill in our own legislature seeks to create a Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Office to explore and support new atomic options. In touting the bill’s passage in the Senate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick noted that demand for power in the state could grow to 130 to 150 gigawatts by 2030; peak demand during 2024 was 86 gigawatts.

As technology creates new options, localized power generation seems a viable option. It would help individual homeowners and businesses better secure their individual needs with less reliance on a state or nation grid that might be less reliable. After initial purchase and installment, a site-based system should lower utility costs as well.

At the same time, more personal power plants would reduce the drain, and strain, on the grid.

To be sure, connection to that grid likely will remain necessary, in case a local system fails or doesn’t supply enough power during peak needs. Greater autonomy, however, could be a viable option for more people in the coming years.

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