Written By: James Kluge
Starting February 10th, 2021, residents of Texas experienced the worst power outage in state history, all stemming from the polar vortex. An extreme snowstorm quickly morphed into a humanitarian crisis when the non-weatherized Texas power grid failed, leaving 4.5 million families without heat and electricity and at least 246 dead over ten days (Svitek 2022). The fragility of Texas’ grid stems from its independence from the main US grid system. Facing increased threats of climate change and severe weather, the Texas State Legislature is reconsidering merging with the rest of the US grid system to stabilize power supplies.
The Texas grid system was made independent after the backlash from the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), a federal-level set of regulations on companies selling electricity and the prices they can charge. Texas chose not to connect to the Eastern and Western “main grids” of the United States to avoid this legislation and maintain complete control of their power supply (Cohn 2022). This required complete self-reliance for electricity, which Texas was uniquely positioned to achieve due to its vast native stores of natural gas and great location for wind farms. Under normal circumstances, the grid would be self-sufficient and reliable for 30 million Texan residents.
However, this overreliance on natural gas and wind energy proved to be Texas’ Achilles heel. Natural gas and wind power were the first and second largest sources of power for Texas in 2021, respectively, neither of which were weatherized. This was an oversight by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). All regulations ERCOT proposed for weatherization were not required for power companies to remain in good standing (Douglas 2021). Like private driver’s insurance, most companies would only weatherize their plants if it helped reduce costs.
In February 2021, the costs of not weatherizing the grid became apparent: turbines locked up with ice, offlining approximately 25% of Texas’ energy supply from wind power (Storrow 2024). Texas Republicans were quick to point out the perceived reliability of natural gas, though natural gas soon failed as well: pipelines carrying natural gas froze and could not feed the generators – ultimately supplying only 43 of the expected 67 Gigawatts of energy. In one swift stroke, almost 75% of Texas’ power generation had been disabled. 4.5 million homes and businesses were affected, with 246 deaths and over $195 Billion in damages (Svitek 2022). The Texas Great Freeze is considered the worst infrastructure failure in Texas history (Levenson 2021).
It was not the only failure of the grid; ten years earlier, the Groundhog Day blizzard rolled through most of North America. Again, Texas bore the brunt of the storm. Short-term electricity demand increased rapidly, and the same failures occurred: gas wellheads and pipes froze while generator instruments failed (Nerc, 2011). ERCOT urged families to conserve power to ease the blackouts, which affected 75% of homes. The situation was so dire that utility companies attempted to purchase power off the national grid.
The substandard solution during the 2011 crisis raises the question of whether the Texas grid system should merge with the rest of the US grid system. Many private energy companies are reluctant to join the main grid system due to increased government oversight and, therefore, costs. This explanation is not definitive, however. The isolated grid system gives renewable energy technology firms a less competitive market to develop in, supporting their adoption over non-renewable technologies (Hegar 2023). Smaller grid sizes also help to keep consumer-level energy prices down. AC power connections with the Eastern US grid system have been proposed in Texas State Legislature, but they run into reliability issues every time. The more effective solution is a DC transmission line through the Eastern Interconnection, but appealing to the myriad of local power entities is difficult (Cohn 2022). Local power generators enjoy the current freedom of the Texas energy market, and hence are unlikely to accept national-level generators, even if it would protect consumers against further blackouts.
Unfortunately, insuring energy supplies will become increasingly important as climate change continues to alter weather patterns. Concentrated snowstorms like the ones from the Groundhog Day Blizzard and The Great Texas Freeze can be created quickly as warmer air can accumulate more moisture before release (Baker and Barnard, 2022). That is, neither storm was isolated, nor can they be counted as unique weather incidents: Hence, the Texas grid must prepare for a climate increasingly prone to sudden snowstorms. Dev Niyogi, a climatology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, commented in the wake of the 2021 crisis, “We cannot rely on our past to guide our future … [we must consider a] much larger spectrum of possibilities.”
Since The Great Texas Freeze, the Texas state legislature has taken the initiative to insulate the grid. The value of the Texas Energy Fund has grown to $5 Billion since 2021 and is projected to nearly double over the next six years (Guo, 2024). The fund is one of Texas’ greatest tools for establishing new, weatherized power sources. A point of contention is how cost is divvied up: Under Gov. Greg Abbott, the fund has been used primarily for low-interest loans for gas-fueled power plans. Although gas failures accounted for most of Texas’ power loss in 2021, stipulations push new plants to be built “independent of weather.”
Long-term, the policy that will change Texas’ grid the most isn’t even from Texas: In 2024, the Department of Energy announced a series of four transmission projects totaling $1.5 Billion – one of the lines, the Southern Spirit, will connect Texas to Mississippi, and to the national grid for the first time ever (Lewis 2024). While likely an overall positive going forward, this legislation shatters the unique independence of the Texas energy market. Even years later, lessons from the Great Texas Freeze are still reshaping America’s energy landscape.
Let the storm be a lesson: in the face of a growing threat of climate change, no institution should be deemed off-limits to change (Douglas 2021). While studying polar vortex trends at Texas Tech, Professor Katharine Hayhoe remarks, “What if these are getting more frequent? Moving forward, that gives us even more reason to be prepared in the future.” The next Great Texas Freeze may arrive sooner than we think—will Texas be prepared for it?
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