FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — Daryl Miller’s first week on the job as general manager of NRG’s flagship power plant was nearly two years ago — right when a historic winter storm plunged millions of Texans into the dark.
A lot has happened since then.
“We’ve taken our most critical circuits and taken them into modern times,” Miller said.
The W.A. Parish power plant in Fort Bend County is a workhouse, capable of producing 3.8 gigawatts of power, or nearly 5% of all electricity feeding the entire ERCOT grid. Miller said NRG has spent millions on weatherization improvements over the past two years. Preparations for this week’s arctic blast kicked into full gear about 10 days ago.
“Started going over everything, double checking it, checking it twice,” Miller said. “I think we’re in really good shape."
Since the historic winter storm, NRG has installed new insulation and updated heat-tracing of critical components to prevent them from freezing. Unlike in the past when crews would have to do manual checks of that equipment, everything is now fully automated.
“I can be sitting at home at two in the morning on Christmas and if I want to make sure the heat trace panels are on, I can check the heat trace panels,” he said.
Miller won’t be at home, but rather at the plant on Christmas, likely working a 15-hour day.
Not all of the winterization upgrades are high-tech. However, you will find plenty of plywood windbreaks and portable heaters around the facility, as well as pipes wrapped like you would do at home.
“If you get a 30 to 40 mile an hour wind… I mean this isn’t going anywhere, so we know this is going to be protected,” Miller said of one of the plywood barriers.
The veteran power plant manager is a native of the Midwest and knows too well the challenges Mother Nature can bring.
“If things start to freeze, bad things will follow,” he said.
In a March 2021 letter to state legislators, power grid operator ERCOT identified all the power plants in the state that experienced an outage during the historic February winter storm. All five of the gas-fired generating units and half of the four coal-fired units at the W.A. Parish plant produced limited power during the storm, according to the letter.
“What it did is, it gave us a lot of lessons learned, we made a lot of improvements and we have that list,” Miller said. “We talk about it, we document it and we use that to improve for the next year.”
The plant has also experienced its share of non-weather-related issues, including a fire in May at one of its coal-fired power-generating units. That unit, which can produce about 600 megawatts of power, is still out of service according to Miller. Additionally, several other gas and coal units went offline in the past month due to a variety of problems including tube leaks, feedwater problems, and control system issues, according to ERCOT data.
A big challenge facing many power companies in Texas is the age of their fleet.
Parts of the W.A. Parish facility were built when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.
Miller said that’s like keeping a 60-year-old Chevy roadworthy—it takes a lot of time, maintenance, and effort to keep it running.