The first ever ‘ERCOT Innovation Summit’ was held in Austin on Tuesday, but like the heat this week in Houston. The forecast remained the same.

There was a lot of talk about the future at the inaugural event, but no real answers or comments about this upcoming summer.

“There wasn’t anybody at ERCOT making pronouncements like that” said Doug Lewin, author of the Texas Energy and Power newsletter who was there, “It was more discussion and exploration, and stuff like that.”

As for this summer? He says that storage is better than it was a year ago, but we almost had a rolling blackout last September, and there’s a good chance we could have one this time around.

“It is a real possibility” Lewin told KTRH, “There’s every reason to believe that we probably will find ourselves in that situation again this summer.”

Another factor is the on-going growing population here in Texas, but UH Fellow Ed Hirs points out to KTRH, this is not breaking news, and more should be done to prepare.

“The idea of brining in more batteries, the idea of building new natural gas power plants, we should have started that years ago” Hirs said, “There’s a lot of -hope- that we’ll get through the summer without rolling blackouts.”

We shall see. In the meantime, as Joe Biden and the left continue their push to go green, ERCOT said last month that any wind or solar issues would cause ‘immediate and catastrophic grid failure’.

Plus, we have already had 3 power warnings so far this year.