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After a report from ERCOT, Texans are concerned that we might be heading towards a repeat of the power outages that we saw during Winter Storm Uri. The good news is, even if we did have another freeze, it wouldn't be as bad as in 2021.
Beth Garza with the R-Street Institute told KTRH, "Those outages were lengthy, and we were not able to rotate them. I do not believe that situation would exist, even if we had the same weather."
Garza said that Texas' improvements have gone a long way towards winterization and have made major improvements in key areas. She said, "Things like stricter weatherization requirements, with higher penalties for non-compliance. That's a huge motivator for power plants."
The bad news is, that doesn't mean that the number of power outages in a weather situation like 2021 would be zero. Garza warned that in a worst-case scenario, "Some customers' electricity would be involuntarily turned off. Why do we do that? We do that to manage demand and supply."
Garza says those outages would not be widespread, and would most likely only last for an hour or so.
You can read the full ERCOT report here.