Gearino, in a comprehensive report, in early February, 2022 indicated that power outages in February 2021 were largely a failure of the natural gas system, a reality that state officials don’t acknowledge, blaming wind energy instead. But the majority of the power losses were from gas plants, including 25 gigawatts of capacity that went offline. Coal and nuclear outages cut another 4.5 gigawatts and 1.3 gigawatts respectively, according to the University of Texas at Austin report. Considering that peak demand was about 70 gigawatts, losing about 30 gigawatts from gas, coal and nuclear was a disaster.
Wind energy also performed poorly, starting with ice accumulation that led to some wind farms needing to shut down early in the crisis. Wind power outages peaked at about 9 gigawatts, a number that takes into account wind levels on those days, according to the UT Austin report.
Solar power is rapidly growing in Texas, but it remains a tiny share of the state’s electricity supply and had little effect, positive or negative, during the crisis.
“It’s not like wind is blameless, but (the power crisis) wasn’t caused by wind failure,” said Webber. To say otherwise is “at best misleading, at worst an outright lie.”
About 4.5 million Texans lost power, many of them living in homes that were not built to withstand frigid temperatures. At least 246 people died of causes related to the storm and power outages, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The deaths included a mother and her seven-year-old daughter who died of carbon monoxide poisoning and a 60-year old man with disabilities who died of hypothermia, according to reporting by the Houston Chronicle, KTRK television in Houston and other local media outlets.
The Texas power crisis turned out to be the largest example in U.S. history of grid operators forcing blackouts because the electricity supply was not enough to meet demand, according to the FERC/NERC report.
Read this full report for details.
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