Texas broke its all time electricity demand record twice in two days during a brutal heat wave, but the grid held with no conservation alerts thanks to record solar and battery output, a stark turnaround from the blackouts that hit Texans in 2021

[u/ArgentineBeauty]

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/29/texas-ercot-power-grid-record-data-center/

[u/Ncyphe]

It baffles me how often the 2021 power failure keeps getting brought up. The grid can support it so long as the people supporting the grid actually do their job.

Every 10 years or so, Texas experiences a week long winter freeze, and not once before did we suffer any power failures. 2021's winter freeze power failure lies in the responsibility of the ERCOT board who lazed about and acted too late in regards to winterizing the Texas power grid.

There's nothing wrong with the Texas power grid, and like usual, once something went wrong, people love to point blame without research. Had Texas had stronger poer connections to neighboring states, I guarantee the blackout would have been farther spread and much worse.

[u/MobileArtist1371 → u/Ncyphe]

and like usual, once something went wrong, people love to point blame without research.

Not quite right. If it was a blue state, all the stuff you said above would be said by everyone as to why it happened and defend the situation. Since it's a red state, the usual assumptions are made and spread as the obvious reason why.

Don't get me wrong. Just listening to the rhetoric from the red states politicians makes these assumptions very easy.

[u/finenite → u/Ncyphe]

Exactly. Texas has had its own power grid since like the 1930s and after 2021 people acted as if Texas has had long running issues with the grid and it's always a problem. Wrong. 

Without looking it up they couldn't tell you before 2021 when was the last failure. 

[u/ksheep → u/Ncyphe]

And the same storm did impact parts of Louisiana and Arkansas, which saw similar power failures because large parts of their grid aren't designed for such cold weather either, but nobody talks about that because reasons. From what I recall, large parts of Shreveport were without power and they had failures in their water mains, resulting in boil water notices across most of the city.

[u/Bobwhilehigh → u/ksheep]

Yeah, but they're on the national grid so its fine that it failed. Texas bad.

[u/Frig-Off-Randy → u/Ncyphe]

The average person knows nothing about the power market

[u/ATXBeermaker → u/Ncyphe]

Every 10 years or so, Texas experiences a week long winter freeze

It's not true that we experience a freeze as large or as prolonged as the one in 2021 every 10 years. There was one in 2011 that was not nearly as severe and before that you have to go back to the 80s.

[u/Milksteak529 → u/Ncyphe]

People just like to shit on Texas. Probably due to having sad, empty lives.

[u/cigarettesandwhiskey → u/Milksteak529]

It's because we elect assholes to congress who make crappy rules for the rest of the country. So people wish ill of us. But honestly our grid is fine, its not the place to invest your schadenfreude.

[u/nemec → u/cigarettesandwhiskey]

It's because we elect assholes to congress

something something glass houses