On Tuesday, Jan. 16, Ryk Holden, Principal Consultant with OnPoint Energy Partners, gave a detailed presentation to Whitesboro City Council members to help justify the benefits of using a gas microgrid with OnPoint Energy in Whitesboro.
During his presentation, Holden said that over the last year, OnPoint Energy Partners has been performing a feasibility study while searching for a replacement supply to an existing contract with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), an energy, water and community services provider to Texans.
Holden said prices and risks are up since the last contract was up with LCRA. He said onsite power can be a possible solution to help offset those costs and lower risks. They initially thought solar would be the best option with such generous incentives with the IRA last year, but they have found that natural gas does a better job of addressing the risks as well as keeping costs down.
He explained a microgrid is an onsite power (behind the meter power) to use in case power is off while the grid is up. It’s a localized autonomous energy system that can operate independently or in conjunction with the main power grid. Holden said this is good for reliability and sustainability.
According to Holden, the three solutions available are gas, solar and battery. While there are many pros and cons to any of the three options, OnPoint Energy has found the best solution to be a Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine (RICE) gas generator.
Whitesboro is one of many communities in Texas that has had to take a closer look at all of the options when it comes to supplying an energy back-up for its citizens.
According to the University of Texas at Austin’s website, there was a previous massive electricity generation failure in 2021 caused by a winter storm that resulted in nearly 4.5 million homes losing power in the state of Texas. This has raised much concern for many across Texas, including Whitesboro City Council members, who want to avoid another blackout leaving citizens without the energy they need in their homes.
City Administrator Julie Arrington said the February 2021 winter storm Uri that hit Texas caused ancillary costs to skyrocket. She said the city paid $2,000,000 for just the ancillary charges for Uri leaving city administration to absorb the cost by purchasing revenue on a 10-year note.
“Council requested city administration to research information and find out if it is possible to prevent another situation similar to Uri,” Arrington said.
“With the continued growth with solar, we think blackouts with cold will continue to rise,” Holden said.
Alderman Colby Meals had several concerns about this Microgrid and future possible blackouts.
“How are we forecasting growth and what does that mean for the city, power wise?” Meals asked.
“If a rolling blackout does happen here in Texas and Whitesboro takes advantage of the Microgrid, the city can over power before and not even notice anything when the main grid goes down,” Holden said.
According to Holden, OnPoint Energy will help avoid high-cost hours for energy and ancillary service and will help power the city in the event of power grid outages. For these reasons, OnPoint Energy is recommending to at least consider moving forward with this plan.
Arrington said the council would like to ensure the citizens of Whitesboro are taken care of in the event of another disaster and their money is being spent in a manner that will benefit them the most.
“The concept of this project is the RICE solution would be a supplement to our existing electrical set-up. There are still many unanswered questions on whether this is a feasible project and something that the city may want to move towards,” Arrington said.
Arrington confirmed the city is addressing some key questions regarding their options; for instance, how this will change their business relationships and contracts.
“Council and staff cannot say this is something that will happen, but we can say with confidence that we are looking at all angles of the problem to find a better solution, if one exists,” Arrington said.