Hurricane Beryl lands on the Texas Gulf Coast, cuts power to nearly 2.8 million

Hurricane Beryl barreled into the Texas Gulf Coast early July 8, cutting power to nearly 2.8 million customers in a region stretching from San Antonio Bay northeast to the Louisiana state line, sapping Electrical Reliability Council of Texas power demand and weakening real-time wholesale electricity prices.

The Category 1 storm made landfall around 4 am CT near Matagorda, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, according to The Weather Channel.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes the area where the wind is coming ashore in the same direction as the storm's movement—north and east of Be—ryl's landfall in this caseas "the dirty side" of the storm, "as the weather is rougher and more dangerous there."

The region hit by Beryl's "dirty side" includes Houston, the nation's most heavily industrialized metro area in terms of manufacturing jobs with the nation's largest petrochemical complex.

Outages for 'several days'

As of about 2:35 pm CT, nearly 2.8 million customers in the region were offline, of which more than 2.2 million were in CenterPoint Energy's Houston Electric utility service area, according to PowerOutage.us. That equals nearly 85% of its customers.

"Due to the severity of the storm, outages may last for several days, and our ability to communicate restoration updates may be delayed or unavailable at times," CenterPoint told customers through its Power Alert Service.

ERCOT forecast at 12:30 pm CT that systemwide load would peak at barely 55 GW July 8, down 32.1% from 81.2 GW July 1 and down 20.2% from the 69.1 GW average for July 8 in the years 2019-23.

ERCOT Houston Hub real-time on-peak locational marginal prices averaged minus 15 cents/MWh through noon July 8, compared with the previous five-year average of $93.46/MWh for that date.

ERCOT Houston Hub power did not trade on the Intercontinental Exchange the morning of July 8, but ERCOT North Hub on-peak power rose about $9.75 to price around $33.25/MWh for July 9 delivery.

But Houston Ship Channel natural gas edged up 5.5 cents to $1.50/MMBtu in trading July 8 for July 9 delivery, and ERCOT's internal report of day-ahead on-peak LMPs cleared at $30.42/MWh for July 9 delivery.

LNG feedgas demand in Texas fell to 2.3 Bcf/d on July 7-8, from almost 4.2 Bcf/d July 6, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data. Total US LNG feedgas demand was 11.1 Bcf/d July 7-8, down from 13.1 Bcf/d July 6.

Power sector gas demand in Texas fell to 6.2 Bcf/d, down from 6.7 Bcf July 7. Total US power sector gas demand was flat at 45.1 Bcf/d because of increases in other parts of the US.

Petrochemical impact

Marathon reported flaring at its 631,000 b/d Galveston Bay refinery in Texas City because of a power disruption early July 8.

Valero reported no early issues with its 225,000 b/d Texas City plant. As of 11:00 am EDT, both refineries appeared to have access to power, according to the outage map for electric utility TNMP.

Spokespersons for Marathon or Valero did not provide additional information on their refinery operations.

Citgo Petroleum, which cut rates at its 165,000 b/d refinery in Corpus Christi ahead of the storm, is in the process of returning the plant to normal rates.

The storm has hindered Valero's restart of its 360,000 b/d Port Arthur, Texas refinery, which lost power before the storm on July 6, which affected virtually all of the plant's major units, market sources said.

Chevron, anticipating its 112,229 b/d plant in Pasadena, Texas, was likely to be in the path of the storm, began preparations last week at the plant and its other US Gulf Coast assets.

"We conducted significant preparation for the storm as it advanced on the USGC last week and are now in post-storm mode for most of our assets," Chevron spokesman Ross Allen said in a July 8 email.

The ports of Houston-Galveston and Corpus Christi remained subject to major restrictions on vessel movements as of 12 pm EDT July 8.

The Houston Ship Channel ceased all operations late July 7 in preparation for potential hurricane conditions.

The 660,000 b/d southern portion of Explorer's 1.1 million b/d pipeline was offline July 8 following storm-related power outages, a company representative said, adding that a realistic restart is not expected until late July 8. The 1,800-mile pipeline is the main artery supplying refined products from Port Arthur, Texas, to Hammond Indiana, near Chicago. The 450,000 b/d northern portion remains operational.

Power supply issues

The storm also had a big impact on ERCOT's large and growing solar fleet. As of noon July 8, ERCOT forecast peak solar output to fall below 12.5 GW July 8, compared with more than 15.3 GW July 1 and almost 17.5 GW July 7.

Despite the Category 1 storm landing within a few miles of the South Texas Project's nuclear plant in Bay City, the 2.6-GW plant continued operating at 100% capacity, said the STP Nuclear Operating Co. A corporate office building did lose power and is being supplied by a diesel generator, plant spokeswoman Amanda Sitka said.

Because the site-specific weather forecast did not call for higher-than-tropical-storm-force winds, the units did not have to shut preventively, as required for most nuclear plants, Sitka said. Maximum sustained winds at the site were 55 miles per hour, she said.

Other utilities affected

Other major East Texas utilities facing large numbers of customer outages around 2:30 pm CT July 8, according to PowerOutage.us, included the following:

Entergy Texas: 235,060 of 512,204 customers
Texas New Mexico Power: 116,830 of 275,442 customers
Mid-South Synergy: 29,377 of 40,781 customers
American Electric Power: 23,962 of almost 1.1 million customers
San Bernard Electric Cooperative: 15,360 of 32,596 customers
Oncor Electric Delivery: 10,318 of more than 4 million customers
Sam Houston Electric Cooperative: 64,606 of 91,536 customers
Entergy said most of its customer outages were in Montgomery, Jefferson, Walker, and Liberty Counties near Houston.

"Weather conditions from the storm have caused damage to Entergy Texas transmission equipment, which caused 17 substations to lose power," Entergy said around noon July 8. "Once the storm passes and it's safe to do so, Entergy Texas crews will begin the official damage assessment throughout the company's 27-county service area and determine the most effective way to restore power to communities."

More than 500 additional workers are on hand to help Entergy Texas crews with restoration, the company said.