The 2021 Texas Winter Storm Blackouts
On 14 February 2021, Texas (ERCOT): A grid built for heat froze along with the gas supply that feeds it, and Texas came within minutes of a total collapse that could have taken weeks to recover from.
Key Facts
- Rolling blackouts began on 15 February 2021 during Winter Storm Uri.
- At the peak, over 52,000 megawatts of generating capacity was offline.
- ERCOT said the grid came within 4 minutes and 37 seconds of total collapse.
- Texas's official death toll is 246; independent estimates are higher.
What Happened
Winter Storm Uri brought a week of extreme cold to Texas from 13 February 2021, freezing natural gas wellheads, pipelines and power plant equipment across a grid largely built to handle summer heat, not sustained freezing temperatures. Over just a few hours on 15 February, roughly 40% of the grid's generating capacity, more than 52,000 megawatts, went offline.
ERCOT, the grid operator, ordered rolling blackouts to keep the whole system from collapsing; in places the outages lasted for days. ERCOT later said the grid came within about 4 minutes and 37 seconds of a total statewide blackout, which its own estimates suggested could have taken weeks to recover from.
Texas's official count of 246 deaths, mostly from hypothermia as heating failed, is widely regarded by researchers as an undercount; independent estimates run considerably higher. Property damage was put at around 195 billion US dollars, and the event led to new state rules requiring power plants and gas infrastructure to winterize.
Cause
Extreme cold freezing gas supply and power plants that were not winterized
Researched independently from public reporting, not from this site's own data. Source: University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute.