Last week’s cold air blob challenged the Texas grid, it was not as severe as 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, nor as long lasting, but offered a reasonable test of improvements and updates since that deadly debacle.
Weatherization, what a concept.
Wind over performed, Batteries and solar backed up newly renovated gas.
ERCOT analysts and energy experts told Latitude Media that gas plants and wind turbines were less vulnerable to icy conditions than they were in 2021, in part due to weatherization mandates from state officials. Few plants went offline during the storm — a stark departure from when gas well heads and pipelines froze during Uri, causing rolling blackouts and skyrocketing electricity prices. Since then, Texas has also added more than 14 gigawatts of new battery storage capacity, some of which kicked in during critical windows Monday and Tuesday morning when demand spiked as residents and businesses turned on the heat.
“The gas, coal, and nuclear fleet was all significantly more reliable this time around, and then the batteries gave Texas the flexibility that those other generators don’t,” said Stephen Ryan, power market analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
Luck played another role: There was more wind and less ice than forecasters feared in the lead-up.
Ryan said that wind generation “overperformed.” Output was nearly six GW higher on Saturday and three GW higher on Sunday than Wood Mackenzie had forecasted. For every megawatt of wind on the grid, there’s less need for more expensive fossil fuels, he said. Renewables help drive down the cost overall of the entire system.
ERCOT’s ability to weather the storm could be a glimpse at the future for other grid operators; Texas leads the nation in renewables and storage deployment, and has become a test bed for the energy transition. Fern has demonstrated that a mix of winterized power generation can absorb shocks to the system, and — especially if the wind cooperates — temper skyrocketing prices. Analysts told Latitude Media that grid reliability doesn’t come from certain technologies winning, but rather from fossil fuels, solar, wind, and battery storage all covering the weaknesses of each other.
“If you compare our grid in 2026 to what it looked like in 2021, we were way more dependent on gas as a single resource back then,” said Matthew Boms, executive director of the clean energy trade group Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance. “Now we’ve got a really diversified fuel mix.”
ERCOT’s data shows how these resources deployed in real-time during the storm as demand spiked.
Gas is the largest energy resource in Texas and accounted for anywhere between 40% and 70% of the fuel mix between Saturday and Tuesday — with the highest penetration overnight as temperatures dropped. Wind accounted for between 7% and 30%, performing best over the weekend.
In the leadup to the winter storm, there was a speculation that batteries would help avert an energy crisis. ERCOT in December reported an emergency was less likely because of the growing number of storage projects connected to the grid.
However, battery operators largely didn’t fire off until Monday and Tuesday morning. Boms explained this was by design, given those were the riskiest hours for the grid — which is typically the mornings, when “people wake up, they turn on the heat, the lights, the hot water, and businesses start running,” he said.
In a statement to Nexstar, ERCOT highlighted several improvements they made that helped guide them through the winter storm. They include:
- Weatherization of energy plants and constant inspections;
- ERCOT plans to have completed at least 450 inspections between Dec-Feb;
- Started a real-time co-optimization plus batteries system;
- Implemented last month, the system aims to better allocate grid resources;
- Have the ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS);
- Reserve power ready for deployment within 10 minutes to match unexpected demand;
- Regular maintenance in the spring and fall to get ready for the summer and winter;
- The establishment of the Texas Energy Reliability Council (TERC);
- Established clear communications between ERCOT, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) and the gas and energy industries.
“I think they were all helpful,” University of Texas Energy Professor Michael Webber said. The most helpful thing, however, may be simply having more power available. “In the last five years, there have been significant investments in more solar and more batteries and demand response — which means dialing down your loads when it’s really cold outside.”
Energy experts say the sun boosts the power generation available to the grid and also acts as insurance if any natural gas-fired power plants go down.
Bruce Bullock, the director of the Maguire Energy Institute at SMU, said so far, the grid has held up.
“To date, it performed very well,” said Bullock. “We’ve been watching it, really, from the time they started to prepare for the cold snap, through this morning.”
Bullock said it helped that schools and many businesses didn’t open on Monday, which lowered demand for power.
Public Utility Commission Chair Thomas Gleeson said it’s hard to quantify the effect that weatherization has had on grid reliability. He commended ERCOT for its work that helped prepare the state for the storm, including having more reserve power available and conducting at least 450 inspections during this winter season.
“It’s evident to me that all of that investment, particularly in vegetation management and hardening, paid off,” Gleeson said. “I think everyone should be heartened by the way the grid performed based on all the infrastructure investments we’ve made.”
The overall demand during the winter storm was lower than was forecast, which the grid operator attributed to cloudy weather conditions that led to warmer temperatures and also to school and business closures.
Large flexible loads like cryptomining also reduced their energy usage during this time, resulting in energy demand less than had been forecast.