Texas power grid struggles with system-wide stresses caused by brutal heat wave
William Brangham:
As Texas and much of the South broils right now, more people are dialing up their air conditioning to stay safe.
In fact, in Texas, which operates its own electrical grid, demand for power there hit an all-time high this week. That puts enormous stress on utilities and power lines, at the very moment that they're also being impacted by the extreme heat.
Michael Webber is a professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin, author of several books on this topic, and also chief technology officer at the venture fund called Energy Impact Partners.
Michael Webber, thanks so much for being here.
Just some table-setting here. When we talk about the grid, what specific infrastructure are we talking about? Is it the utilities? Is it power plants? Is it the lines? What is it?
Michael Webber, University of Texas at Austin: It's all of that. You got to.
It's the power plants that make the electricity, the transmission lines that move the electricity from the power plants to the cities, and then the distribution lines that move it around the city, and then eventually you get to our meters and our appliances, like our air conditioner.
So it's a whole system up to the meter that really is what we call the grid.
Source: PBS NewsHour
