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Climate change cost ERCOT over $1b in 2022

February 24, 2023

Since 1970, Texas has warmed by about 2.9ºF. We wanted to find out how much this has affected electricity demand and prices, so we de-trended 2022 temperatures back to 1970 levels and then simulated hourly load and hourly prices for all load zones in ERCOT.

For this exercise, the amount of renewables stayed exactly the same. The only grid resource we altered was hourly zonal load. To figure out the effect on prices, we applied the 2022 relationships between grid balances and price deviations to the adjusted grid balances and 2022 settled prices.

The result? Lower demand (and prices) in winter but larger demand and price increases in summer that cause a net $1.23 billion total system cost increase.

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