Will Our Grid Stand Up to the Heat?

David Holt is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance, and he is here to tell us if the grid is going to hold up during this tropical heat wave that we're having. It's a heat wave, David, a tropical heat wave. It sure is. I mean, we keep setting records for energy use, for sure. Brad is setting records for length of his weather forecast with nothing going on except heat. So, yeah, it's a miracle. Now, is the grid hanging on here? Because I remember the governor said he kind of staked this political future on it that we would never have a 2021 with hot or cold weather again. Well, you know, I think we're right on the edge. Texas is growing so fast. Demand is growing so fast. All the data centers, industrial growth, manufacturing growth. You know, ERCOT, which is the grid manager for the state of Texas, is predicting record demand growth. We've never seen something like this in the state of Texas. So. Just last week, we set another all-time record for energy use in the state. We're probably going to beat that record here with the new heat wave. We need transmission. We need polls. We need more interconnection to bring the energy to the markets where all the growth is occurring. Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, all the metro areas. It's really going to be about getting things built as quickly as we can, and that begins for electricity. It's going to be a lot of the transmission we need. We've done a great job. The governor's right. They've done a really good job of adding more energy, but we need to connect that energy now, and that's transmission lines and things like that. But natural gas, wind and solar are the dominant energy resources in Texas. Nuclear is on the horizon. Nuclear will be a big part of it going forward. But right now it's a transmission problem. We've got to build out the infrastructure. You know, David, we've got our own grid here in Texas because we in Texas, as my teacher used to say, don't share with others very well. But I would think that while that can be a great thing for Texas, could it potentially work against us as well? You know, my teacher used to say it's because Texas is the best. That's right. You know, you went to the wrong school. Well, you know, it's the only school it would take me, David, okay? It's a, it's a blessing and a curse. You know, Ercot is, I think, doing a really good job of now thinking forward, managing these issues. They've come out. If you get on the Ercot website, ERC-C-O-T, you can see a lot of their projections in the forecast. So they're. They're trying to predict as best they can based on what growth is going to look like. And it's eye-opening. We've never seen a growth forecast like this in the state of Texas. This is probably going to be historic, the biggest growth in the history of electricity for the state of Texas. And we're seeing similar growth all around the country. So it's about managing that, getting ahead of it, making sure that we have enough natural gas.

natural gas pipelines for electricity. We've got to have transmission lines, high voltage transmission lines. Really, that's the issue. I think ERCOT has predicted it pretty well. They've sent their warnings to the Texas legislature, to the governor, others. Right now, it's about getting the permits issued. finding the spots to build these transmission lines and having the political wherewithal to get it done. All right. And bringing the communities along. We got to let communities know what's going on. The U.S. soccer podcast. These players are battered and exhausted, but you don't hurt like this if you don't care about this team, about this country, about this game. I think you can feel the intensity. The goals, the energy that, wow, look at us. Here in the U.S., I have got some news for you. There's so much more to come. My name is Megan Klingberg, and we're just getting started. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Henkel. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. David Holt is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance, the president. We don't talk to vice presidents here, our general managers. We go right to the top. We go to the top. And David is with us. I want to ask you this. I'm not for shutting down downtowns at night or anything. Everything needs to be lit up a little bit. What if the entire state? Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, all the big ones, just cut back on power at night a little bit. You still want things lit up somewhat for safety reasons and everything. But could the state save a tremendous amount of money if it wasn't so lit up? You know, it's difficult to do that in a kind of a system-wide basis because, you know, you've got manufacturing, you have industrial processes, you have other things that are running at night. From a consumer standpoint, you know, cutting back a little bit on our home use would save us all a little bit of money. You know, that's something, you know, individual home use, making sure your windows aren't leaking. Oh, yeah, yeah. Things like that, you could save individual money. shutting down different parts of the system like that, it gets real hard to do. You've got electrons going in a lot of different directions. It becomes you risk, you know, power outages if you're trying to ramp up and ramp down a little bit too much like that. So it's a really good idea, but harder to do in practical. Now, when you said electrons going in different directions, you went way over my head there. I'll leave that up to Marty and earn it. I got to stay off the cellular level with Hal. Okay. David, let me ask you this. Now, the governor said the other day that the idea of all the data centers coming to Texas is going to be very, very difficult. It's going to need four times more generation than we've ever generated at one particular time. Are there plans to create that much generation for these new data centers if they, in fact, are built? You know, there are. They're talking about a lot of different ways to do it. Some of the data centers would like their own kind of mini microgrid that just powers that data center. A lot of these data centers need 24-7.

uninterrupted power. So they cannot have a power outage for any reason. And there's a lot of great technology, a lot of great reasons for all the data centers to come here in the state. I think the legislature is very excited about it. The governor I think was probably right to set just a little bit of a pause here to say, you know, guys, we got to do a better job of communicating to the communities. There's been a lot of questions among the communities where these data centers are going in about. water usage and the price of electricity, noise, things like that. To me, the benefits of the data centers, telemedicine, better logistics, improve farming, all the things that we all kind of need. We're all in an information society. So we probably need to do a little bit better job of communicating and make sure everyone understands all the benefits, including tax benefits, including national security, all these things. So I think that's why the governor set that. Let's take a beat. Let's make it sure we're all on the same page. But the bottom line, gentlemen, is we need the data centers. It's a great opportunity for Texas. It's bringing jobs. It's bringing growth, bringing more money for the economy. This is David Holt. He is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance on the Clarity Windows and Doors Newsline. David, thank you so much for your time this morning. We'll definitely have you back. Appreciate it. Start your day with the morning jolt of Drake Toll. Anywhere in the country. Your home for talking sports. The United States hockey team has four teeth left. What is LeBron James Legacy? Leonel Mess. 906 career goals is stupid. All of it. The Knicks. The Los Angeles Lakers. Aaron Rogers. Georgia football players. The Dolphins. The Mets. As it happened, when it happened. We'll talk all of it. Westwood One Sports Talk. Your home for Drake Toll. Follow and listen on your. favorite platform.