Will The Power Stay On In Texas During This Winter Blast?

With Texas getting blasted by a massive cold front that has put winter front and center, it also brings back some nasty memories for most Texans who were around for the massive winter storm of 2021.

Inches upon inches of snow dumped across the state, bringing frigidly cold temperatures not normally seen here, meaning a LOT of people running their heat a lot more often than usual.

While this stretch doesn't seem to be bringing the amount of snow the last one did, it is bringing those temperatures we aren't used to. So we're still planning on cranking that heat up and using it a bit more than normal.

The last time this happened, the ERCOT grid got absolutely overloaded and started causing full on shutdown of the system, leaving thousands without heat to stay warm. Once they were able to restore order, rolling blackouts began.

While that was a rough time in Texas history, ERCOT learned some things, and they began improving their system to avoid this from happening in the future.

Well, the future is now here, and the grid is going to be put to the test. Will they be able to handle the demand for heat during this stretch? If you ask ERCOT, they'll tell you yes.

According to ERCOT, the grid is stable so conservation methods won't be needed...but they thought that last time, so fingers crossed that's the reality. Texas Energy and Power Newsletter author Doug Lewin also mentioned that the chances of an outage during this stretch were low.

So go ahead, crank that heat up and stay warm. ERCOT said it's ok.