The polar vortex has left millions of Texans without power. Could the same happen to Hoosiers?

The same winter storm that blew more than 8 inches of snow into Indianapolis on Monday hit Texas — and hit it hard. 

The southern state reached record-breaking cold temperatures and residents cranking up the heat overwhelmed power generators. Millions of households lost electricity, and many have now been without power and heat for days. Predictions on when it will be restored are uncertain.

As the chill settled in, Texans unaccustomed to cold, snow and ice scrambled to keep themselves warm. Families huddled around fireplaces, burning pieces of old fence or furniture. People waited in lines for as long as five hours for groceries. More than 30 people nationwide have died from the winter storm. 

The continuing blackouts have some falsely blaming Texas’ wind turbines and others calling for what they say are much-needed investments in electric infrastructure. 

The outages also raise a question: Could this happen in Indiana?

The answer is yes – but it's not likely. Unlike Texas, Indiana's power system is under heavy regulation that requires weatherization. It's power grid is also connected to many other states, giving it the ability to pull in power from neighbors in the event of power loss in Indiana.

That said, experts warn that power grids across the country are unprepared to cope with an increasing amount of extreme weather events caused by climate change. 

“Extreme weather is extreme weather and that can have significant impacts on all infrastructure,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, a consumer advocacy group in Indiana that focuses on energy. 

And as extreme weather events like this polar vortex that battered the middle of the country become more frequent , it underscores the urgency to make sure states are prepared, Olson said. 

Still, he added, “We are extremely different from Texas.” 

What caused the Texas blackouts

Texas’ infrastructure wasn’t built to withstand the freezing, single-digit temperatures that hit the state earlier this week. Demand for energy skyrocketed past worst-case scenario expectations at the same time supply to the system plummeted. 

Pipelines and gas wellheads froze, equipment stopped working and power plants shut down. More than half of the state’s winter generating capacity — or 46,000 megawatts — went offline. 

That left nearly 4.5 million customers without electricity on Tuesday and some 560,000 Texans still didn’t have the lights turned on by Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us.

Many have raised questions as to why the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, didn’t require its generators to have winter weather protections. 

In a media call on Wednesday, ERCOT officials said while there are best practices for weatherization — established by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. after an investigation into a 2011 cold spell — they are only guidelines and power companies are not required to follow them. The Texas group voluntarily inspects some of their units for this weatherization, but does not require it. 

In 2018, when a similar cold front rolled through Texas, these measures appeared to help. But this year has shown another result.

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“This even more extreme cold weather event that’s happened in the last few days occurred, and apparently, those (measures) were not sufficient to keep these generators online,” said Dan Woodfin, ERCOT senior director for systems operations during the call.

Now, several days out, the primary issue appears to be a lack of fuel delivery to natural gas plants. Some lines remain frozen and the fuel that is available is being prioritized for gas heating over electricity generation, according to experts.

ERCOT has not been able to predict when full power will be restored. 

The power outages will be investigated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp., both groups announced Tuesday. 

How Indiana’s power system differs from Texas’

The country is divided into three main grids: one that covers the eastern states, one that covers the western U.S. and then the Texas grid. 

Texas’ power grid, which covers nearly the whole state, is separate from the rest of the country. The independent system in the Lone Star state was part of an effort to avoid federal regulation in the 1930s.

In some cases, that’s a good thing for the state: It helps to simplify regulatory processes. But in situations like this, it can hurt, said Doug Gotham, director of the State Utility Forecasting Group at Purdue University.

Because Texas’ grid is isolated, the state can’t rely as much on neighbors for importing power, Gotham said. Indiana, on the other hand, could likely resolve power outages more quickly because of its connection to other states. 

Indiana is covered by two regional transmission organizations called the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, and PJM Interconnection. These organizations monitor, coordinate and control multi-state power grids to get power from where it’s produced to where it’s needed. 

"Indiana is the Crossroads of America for more than just roads," said Stephanie Hodgin, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. "We have many interstate transmission gas lines and electric lines that intersect the state, which allow us to be able to import and export more easily."

That's what's happened with the recent vortex, according to MISO spokesman Brandon Morris. The organization's North and Central regions, which include Indiana, continue to export energy to the South region that includes most of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and a few small areas of Southeast Texas. 

Still, that regional structure could also mean Indiana is impacted by power failures in other states in what Gotham called a “cascading outage.” 

This happened in 2003, when eight states and parts of Canada lost power after a tree branch near Cleveland touched a power line. Unbeknownst to Ohio energy company First Energy, the crashed power line increased loads on other power lines, creating a domino-like effect that led a small blackout to becoming a much, much larger one. After five minutes, it shut down 263 power plants. Other than two small plants, Indiana was largely untouched by the power failure.

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It was the largest blackout in North American history. MISO, based out of Carmel, was held partially responsible for failing to alert power companies.

Mostly, though, the interconnected grid reduces the chance of one state going down, Gotham said.  

“The idea behind the interconnected network and relying on your neighbors is that most of the time you’ll prevent the local issues more so than you’ll cause some type of larger issue,” he said.

Indiana utilities have regulatory oversight

There’s another difference between Indiana and a state like Texas that Olson with the Citizens Action Coalition said is often overlooked: The regulatory structure. 

Indiana is a regulated and fully-integrated state, which means utilities own and operate all electricity from generation to the meter. In regulated states, utilities must abide by the electricity rates that are set by the state’s regulatory commission. That means there is no free market competition and this structure is often seen as a monopoly. It does, however, provide long-term certainty and stable prices. 

Texas, on the other hand, is the “exact opposite,” Olson said, “and is easily the most competitive electric grid in the market.” 

It's a deregulated state, which opens things up for who can produce and sell energy — letting different players come in to create competition. That benefits customers by allowing them to compare rates and services and pick the best fit for them.

But that financial and regulatory structure also puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service, offering little incentive for power plant operators to ready themselves for winter weather. 

“One of the major concerns of deregulation is you remove that obligation to serve,” Olson said. “Our utilities have the statutory obligation to provide service and ensure the lights come on, unlike Texas.” 

Indiana’s utilities are constantly preparing for this type of weather, according to Danielle McGrath, president of the Indiana Energy Association, which represents the state’s electric and natural gas utilities. 

That comes with being part of a regional transmission group and regulated by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, she said. There are surveys and planning that happens on a regular basis requiring utilities to spell out the capacity they have on hand and if it will be adequate to meet demand. 

“That’s one thing that’s happening all the time to make sure we are able to meet the needs of customers at the end of the day,” McGrath said. 

The IURC said they can't speak specifically to what has caused the conditions in Texas, but said that at a "high-level," Texas is facing challenges because it is experiencing Indiana-like weather conditions. 

"Indiana is, of course, prepared for Indiana-like weather conditions and units have invested in weatherization infrastructure," said commission spokeswoman Hodgin. 

How extreme weather could impact Indiana power

Texas power plants aren’t designed to withstand extreme cold, Gotham pointed out, as many of them run on water that freezes in severe weather. 

This isn’t the case in Indiana, but that doesn’t mean Indiana power systems are immune to severe events. 

Brandi Davis-Handy, spokesperson for IPL, said the utility's facilities are designed to operate smoothly in extreme weather. This includes heat tracing and insulating pipes and equipment for winter, as well as ventilation and cooling in the summer.

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"A lot of planning and preparation is performed annually for winter and summer peak periods to ensure IPL can keep the lights on for its customers," Davis-Handy said.

Gotham said every power outage he can think of in Indiana has happened because something interrupted the transfer of power from the generator to the customer. Usually, he said, this happens when storms come through and cause damage to power lines or other material — a much quicker fix than the situation in Texas, where officials may have to wait for weather to warm enough to thaw equipment. 

Another way weather could impact power would be during a summer drought. Some generators rely on cooling water from a riverbed, and if that riverbed were to dry up it could curtail the output of that power plant, Gotham said. 

Rumors blaming wind energy for blackouts are false

Shortly after power outages started on Monday, rumors — repeated by many state politicians, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — began circulating that the blackouts were caused by frozen wind turbines.

That wasn’t the case.

In actuality, the majority of failures came from natural gas, coal and other thermal sources, ERCOT officials said. Frozen wind turbines and the iced over solar panels accounted for about 40% of the megawatts that went offline.

“We had generating units of every type that for different reasons went offline during this event,” Woodfin said in Wednesday's media call. “In different ways, the very cold weather and snow has impacted every type of generator.” 

Concerns have been raised during Indiana’s legislative session in recent years about the reliability of renewable sources. Some lawmakers have said the state should keep coal and natural gas around for that reason. But those calls are unfounded, said Leah Rubin Shen, the Indiana Director of Advanced Energy Economy, a member organization that advocates on the economic potential of clean energy.

“This is impacting all kinds of power sources and in a way this highlights the risk of over-reliance on fossil fuels that need to be delivered like coal and natural gas,” she said.  

There are ways to equip wind turbines to withstand this type of event. Indiana's are weatherized and wind turbines operate smoothly in places as harsh as Antarctica. It’s actually easier to make them more robust for this weather rather than preparing a coal or natural gas plant, according to Rubin Shen. 

Regardless, it does show “that when you have a more robust mix of technology on the grid, it improves resilience,” she said. “Indiana is currently around 70% reliant on coal, and that’s a lot to put on one fuel source.” 

McGrath agrees that diversification is good for a state, and Indiana’s utilities are continuing to bring in new generation sources. She said as an “all-of-the-above-state,” Indiana is well positioned for situations like this. 

“At the end of the day, we are still learning about what is happening out there and what went wrong,” McGrath said. “But I think there will be lots of lessons to be learned from this.” 

Weaknesses to the power grid exist across the country

Texas’ blackouts are an extreme example of the strain put on electric grids during inclement weather. But as climate change progresses, extreme weather events will become more and more common.

Energy advocates for years have been pushing for changes that would protect energy sources during severe cold, heat and flooding events. Some of these changes could be as simple as a tweak in calculations.

An issue facing all power grid operators, Nateghi of Purdue said, is adequately preparing for changes in climate. Right now, operators are underestimating the demand for energy they will see during extreme cold and heat waves. 

They’re also not taking into account interdependencies in the system: You need water to generate electricity, and you need electricity to transport water, and so on and so forth, Nateghi said. 

“Even though these interdependencies are growing, they’re not fully accounted for when we plan and manage and operate the systems,” she said. “And when the system is really stressed from an extreme event like it is in Texas, then we’re seeing natural gas shortages which exacerbate the whole impact.”

President Joe Biden’s administration plans to push for upgrades, including weather protections, as part of a “historic investment” in electric grids across the country. The administration is anticipated to release an infrastructure spending plan in the coming weeks.

IPL has plans for investing $1.2 billion in modernizing its power grid, Davis-Handy said, which includes replacing old infrastructure and upgrades to self-healing capabilities that allow the grid to use sensors to analyzeand automatically respond to problems.

The utility urges customers to be aware of their energy use during extreme temperatures. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, almost half of annual energy consumption is used to heat homes during the winter months. 

Nateghi, who researches sustainability and resilience of infrastructure, said other solutions such as upgraded equipment and infrastructure may not be as cost-effective, but are still crucial. She also acknowledges that the pressure to implement improvements is often put on utilities, but that government support, as well as partnerships with institutions and the private sector, can play an important role in funding necessary changes. 

However they’re done, she said, changes need to be made.

“If we continue down the paradigm of what we’ve done before … we are going to see more extremes,” Nateghi said. “These stories are going to just keep playing, and perhaps even more frequently.”

Call IndyStar reporter Sarah Bowman at 317-444-6129 or email at sarah.bowman@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @IndyStarSarah.

Contact IndyStar reporter London Gibson at 317-419-1912 or lbgibson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @londongibson. 

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IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.