Water scarcity continues to be a concern for the Texas electricity grid. In the United States, energy production is responsible for about half of the water use across the country. Plants that produce energy through the use of fossil fuels and nuclear fusion need to be continually cooled with a constant water supply. If the water is not available, then the plant cannot be online. When this happens, plants have to be shut down and power production is lost. If enough power plants go offline, the entire Texas power grid could topple.
In Texas, the hot weather in the summer can stretch the state’s limited fresh water supplies. That drought cannot simply be stemmed by importing water from other parts of the country. Water is required to produce electricity, and lack of water could easily result in power outages for the state’s strained electrical grid.
Texas can have especially dry hot summers, which lower water supplies just as electricity demand peaks. There are concerns coming from ERCOT, the Texas regulatory commission responsible for the state’s electricity grid, that the water supply could be depleted or energy production might not reach the levels of demand because of a lack of water.
Studies have shown that greater efficiency in energy production can reduce the need for water to be used as a coolant. The U.S. Department of Energy does not have a policy regarding water use for energy production, but some forms of energy production are more efficient than others.
For example, a plant that uses natural gas to produce energy converts two-thirds of the gas it uses into energy. This results in less waste than from a plant that is fired by coal. Renewable energies tend to have even less water demand. However, despite leading the country in wind energy production. Texas still gets a relatively small percentage of its power from renewable energy sources.
Cheap natural gas has not only brought down electricity rates in Texas, but has managed to displace coal as a source of power generation. This tends to have a positive impact on the state’s water issues but serious challenges remain with regard to the state’s water and energy needs.