Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, speaking at a news conference in Austin, said 6,000 megawatts have been added to the Texas grid Wednesday, enough power for about 1.2 million households.
In addition to the 1.2 million households that have had power restored Wednesday, there will be additional onboarding coming from the South Texas Nuclear Project and additional operations will increase from coal-produced power, Abbott said.
These sources will add more than 2,000 megawatts to the grid and provide additional power for about 400,000 homes, according to Abbott.
“There continues to be problems with natural gas-fired generators, as well as wind generation,” he said. “About 19,800 megawatts of gas-powered generation is still offline because of either mechanical issues, or the lack of the supply of gas for those gas generators to produce power.”
The governor said 17,200 megawatts of renewable generated power remain out on Wednesday afternoon, due to “freezing of the wind, or because of lack of sun for the solar.”
Abbott was also asked about his Fox News interview earlier in the week where he slammed forms of renewable energy and whether he feels any particular type of power source is responsible for the problems millions of Texans are facing this week.
“Over the past 24 to 48 hours, I have conducted about two dozen or more interviews, and I have repeatedly talked about how every source of power the state of Texas has, has been compromised, whether it be renewable power, such as wind or solar, but also as I mentioned today, access to coal-generated power, access to gas-generated power also have been compromised,” he said.
“Whether it be with regard to systems freezing up or equipment failures, as well as our nuclear power facility. So, the fact is, every source of power the state of Texas has access to has been compromised, because of the ultra-cold temperature, or because of equipment failures,” the governor said.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/snow-ice-storm-power-outages-updates-02-17-21/index.html
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