We made it through the summer ok, and ERCOT says it is ready for the winter, but some experts are warning that because of higher demand, there is a greater risk of a power outage than there was in 2021 during winter storm Uri.
"The odds of an outage, a winter outage, are greater than they were" said Brent Bennett, policy director with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, "The problem is that since the 2021 winter storm, all we've done pretty much in Texas is build solar and batteries. And meanwhile, demand has grown by about 15 gigawatts (GW), about 20%."
The bottom line is, wind and solar don't hold up in the winter, like they do in the summer. In the meantime, the need for more energy continues to grow, and will continue to do so. Especially when all of the high-use data centers go live here in Texas.
"What you have is rapidly growing demand, and that's going to get more so with the data centers coming" noted Bennett, "In the winter time, demand peaks at night, not during the day. The fact that we are primarily meeting demand growth with resources that don't work in the winter, just means that the odds are going up."
What also needs to go up are more gas powered plants, which are in the works, but take time to build.