The Texas Blackout of February 2021

From February 14-18 2021 Texas experienced some near record low temperatures. This resulted in an almost total collapse of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) electric grid, with ERCOT frequencies falling below 59.4 Hz for several minutes. The event also resulted in almost 70% of ERCOT customers losing power for at least part of the time. This talk will provide background on the ERCOT system, a discussion of what occurred during the event, and then broad consideration of how these types of high impact, low frequency events can be prevented or at least mitigated moving forward.

Thomas J. Overbye, Texas A&M University

Thomas J. Overbye is professor and holder of the O’Donnell Foundation Chair III in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Prior to joining TAMU in 2017 he was a Fox Family Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before starting his academic career he was employed with Madison Gas and Electric Company. He is the original developer of PowerWorld Simulator, a co-founder of PowerWorld Corporation, and an author of a widely used Power System Analysis and Design book. He was also the recipient of a University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering Distinguished Achievement Award, the IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award, and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Date/Time

May 26, 2021 @ 12pm-1pm Central Time (rescheduled from original May 12 date)

Registration

Advance registration is required for this meeting (May 12th registrants do not need to re-register):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctdeysqj4uGtTChMhpN2QQPT8ZedjXRCA_

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Recording

Meeting Recording:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/ZCdQsewiVWkpoALX7-2eQUfjfe3TErY319Va5l3VQ9DjvzepgprPNzH6rrwQGrH7.u_H0sd1DHtfL4uML