https://www.news-journal.

com/news/business/local/history-of-decisions-on-electricity-saved-longview-from-worst-of-
winter-storm/article_4f5b846e-786b-11eb-9ce7-cfae2e2ba529.html

TOP STORY

History of decisions on electricity saved Longview from worst of

winter storm
By Jo Lee Ferguson jferguson@news-journal.com
Feb 28, 2021

An AEP-Southwestern Electric Power Co. crew works on restoring power in April 2020 after a power line was brought down on Third
Street in Longview.
Michael Cavazos/News-Journal File Photo

The recent winter weather that left much of Texas cold and in the dark also left East Texans
with a question: How was the Longview area mostly spared the same misery?
The answer to that question can be found before the start of World War II. The answer also
can be found in modern times, as local leaders worked to keep electric deregulation out of
this area. And nally, look to the weather itself, with a slight shift in what had been
predicted saving this area from the worst of the ice and snow that left so many people across
the state without power.

“I have a deep appreciation and concern for our neighbors throughout the state of Texas that
suffered loss due to this event,” said state Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview. “I don’t want to make
light of that at all. During the height of the event, in all of Gregg County, I think we had
maybe 29 homes that lost power and only for a short period of time.”

Dean, a former Longview mayor, spoke this past week after a day of listening to a joint
hearing of Texas House committees with of cials from the Electric Reliability Council of
Texas — ERCOT — and power company executives. ERCOT is a nonpro t organization that
manages the electric grid for most of the state of Texas, with the exception of pockets around
the edges of the state. The market was deregulated years ago, allowing customers within
ERCOT’s service area to choose their electricity provider.

Longview and much of the rest of Northeast Texas, except for Smith County, chose not to
enter into deregulation. This area does not and has never been a part of ERCOT. Instead,
Northeast Texas is part of the Southwest Power Pool, which continues to be regulated. In
Northeast Texas, and other parts of the state, AEP-Southwestern Electric Power Co. is the
only electric provider.

“There (were) so many balls dropped because of that ERCOT system,” Dean said. “From
communication — anything and everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.”

Dean said he spoke to SWEPCO representatives before and during the storm for updates.

“In our situation, dealing with the SWEPCO, AEP, we’ve got one phone call to make,” he said,
while people in the unregulated market might have to contact multiple companies in
preparation for this kind of situation.

Since that initial rejection of deregulation in this area, a state law was passed that says
deregulation won’t come here until someone can beat the electricity prices available through
SWEPCO.

“That’s been, how many years? And no one has been able to do that,” Dean said, who added
he has concern for the rest of the state.
“It sounds to me like we have a problem with our grid (ERCOT),” he said, and there’s a lot of
work needed to x that situation.

Origin story
The Southwest Power Pool celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2016. Unlike ERCOT, which was
founded in 1970 and is completely inside Texas, the Southwest Power Pool manages the
electric grid and wholesale power market for a group of utilities and transmission companies
in 17 states.

“The electric utility industry developed from small suppliers who served customers using
low-voltage lines during the latter part of the 19th century into monopolies controlled by a
handful of holding companies by the mid-1930s,” the organization’s 75th anniversary book
says. “Technologies such as alternating current transformers and steam turbines allowed
savvy entrepreneurs to take advantage of economies of scale as they bought and
consolidated the smaller companies.

“Progressive-Era reformers began to push for regulation of the growing industry at the state
level, and by 1914, 43 states had policies in place to govern the electric utilities. States began
to grant monopoly franchises with exclusive service territories while requiring the
companies to provide service at regulated prices.”

Large holding companies began to buy up the utilities, leading to higher costs and
allegations of illegal activity. That, in turn, led then-President Franklin Roosevelt to call for
federal regulation.

“The issues of public versus private ownership and federal versus state regulation intensi ed
toward the end of the Great Depression — until the beginnings of World War II shifted the
nation’s focus and forced a truce between the competing interests,” the anniversary book
says.

That’s where the Southwest Power Pool was born.

“Southwest Power Pool dates to 1941, when 11 regional power companies joined to keep an
Arkansas aluminum factory powered around the clock to meet critical defense needs. After
the war, SPP’s Executive Committee decided the organization should be retained to maintain
electric reliability and coordination. After the Northeast power interruption in 1965, other
reliability councils were organized,” the book says.

SWEPCO, which was at that time known as Southwestern Gas and Electric Co., was one of
those 11 original members of the Southwester Power Pool.
While the Southwest Power Pool fared better than ERCOT, the record-breaking low
temperatures also were a challenge for the organization.

“ERCOT and SPP each required reductions in electric load during the extreme winter weather
emergency last week,” said SWEPCO spokesman Peter Main. “SPP required fewer and shorter
controlled outages, limited to Feb. 15 and Feb. 16. It was the rst time SPP has required this
emergency action across its region in the 80-year history of the organization.”

In a letter on the Southwest Power Pool website, President and Chief Executive Of cer
Barbara Sugg said the week of cold temperatures, snow and ice was “the most operationally
challenging week we’ve ever faced in our 80-year history...”

“Record-low temperatures hit the entirety of our service territory and stayed low for days on
end,” she said. “The result was a simultaneous increase in electricity use at the same time
power producers faced fuel-supply issues and equipment malfunctions: a perfect storm that
stressed the bulk electric system to its limits. And, yet, with only two short-lived exceptions,
SPP kept the lights on.”

Those interruptions were a last resort, she said.

“We did so only after exhausting every other option, including bringing emergency
generation online, importing power from neighboring regions, and more,” she said. “We
understand the critical role reliable electricity plays in your everyday lives, and that to go
without it, especially in a prolonged period of extreme cold, puts lives and livelihoods at risk.
Know that last week, the alternative would have been far worse, and had we not deliberately
lessened our regional electricity use, we could have faced outages that were longer, more
widespread, and more costly in terms of both lives and economics.”

Deregulation
For Dean, this experience seals the decision made years ago to keep electric deregulation out
of Northeast Texas, even though this kind of situation wasn’t the driving factor behind that
decision. He was mayor of Longview from 2005-15, just after the ERCOT service area was
deregulated to allow competition.

Northeast Texas fought to stay regulated and keep SWEPCO as its electric provider.

“Back in 07-08, when I was mayor, and I was getting pressure that we should become part of
the unregulated market — back then my decision on not joining that was based on, all the
information we had, was that our residents were going to pay a whole lot more money for
electricity than what we were paying,” he said, to the tune of 40% more for industry and 25%
more for residential.

“The decision was strictly based on economics,” he said.

The “unreliability and inef ciencies” in the deregulation of the ERCOT market didn’t make
sense, he said.

“And by the grace of God, it served us well during this event,” Dean said.

Degree of separation
Record-breaking cold weather early in the week of Feb. 14 was followed by heavy snow, sleet
and ice days later.

Still, the Longview area didn’t experience widespread power outages as had been expected.

“I think the primary factor there was that the line between sleet and ice ended up further
south than expected based on forecasts,” said Main, with SWEPCO, and the company had
expected Longview and the Interstate 20 corridor to be hit hard.

He said a matter of a 1-degree shift in temperature made the difference. Instead, more icing
took place south of Longview, in the Center-Teneha-Shelby County area and into Louisiana.

“That was really a matter of where that temperature line fell, and what could have happened
with just a 1-degree difference in temperature. We had prepared for that possibility,” Main
said. “We were in the process of bringing in hundreds of additional linemen and tree and
support personnel and staging some of those in East Texas. We moved them further south to
a staging area, a base camp, in Center as we saw where the damage was.”

Jo Lee Ferguson