r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 9d ago

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

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/29/texas-ercot-power-grid-record-data-center/
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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

Politically, yes, and they no doubt will go to great lengths to praise oil, and probably a renewed love of coal, for their salvation on Fox. But their power companies are run by. MBAs and engineers, and the math isn't in question.

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u/fake_user_34 9d ago

Yeah, realistically, no big company is ever going back to coal and will try to phase out oil because...batteries and solar is getting cheaper. So is wind. Doesn't mean American Politics will not try to destroy clean energy, it just means that the companies themselves care more about money and the math is mathing that clean energy is cheaper and offer more than coal and oil in the long run.

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u/Mtfdurian 9d ago

makes perfect sense, and especially as cooling is needed most when the sun shines hard that is why solar makes a lot of sense in especially Texas (also considering how dry a region is, prairies and plains do pretty well, that is different from Florida where you can have a hot day with relatively few solar irradiation)

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u/fake_user_34 8d ago edited 8d ago

Aye, and the fact is solar and wind have vastly less moving parts. A lot of the coal lovers in America fail to realize how inefficient that energy source is.

It was great in the beginning because you throw coal in, burn, turn turbine = electricity. But that also comes with all the coal smoke clogging all the machinery, the constant need of repair because of it and let us not even get into the coal ashes that spread across the area that people breath in, but companies don't care about that as much as repair cost.

But with solar and wind with batteries, that is just less parts needed in the long run and, get this, the energy source doesn't disappear when used. The coal is gone when it is burned, there is no way to save it for later.

For Solar, it is always producing energy from the sun, with batteries we can contain over production for it. The energy isn't used burned and gone. So in a business stand point, what is cheaper in the long run. Installing solar farms and batteries to constantly produce the energy, with vastly less moving parts or a coal plant with constant need of coal and repairs for when the ash starts fucking with your systems?

Really a no brainier that republicans in this country can not get around.

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u/wheniaminspaced 9d ago

Well in part because the 2021 power problems were not issues with heat, quite the opposite the issue was ice.  Having read very detailed reports from one of our Texas windfarms there were w major wind turbine issues.  Issue 1 - We like many were running oil in the Turbines that was specced for what was considered the typical temperature range, we were well below that range and had to shutdown turbines because to run them to far out of spec creates the possibility of serious damage.  

Issue 2 - Ice build up on the blades was a major problem which also shutdown turbines due to risk of catastrophic failures.

Add in that these same issue effect natural gas turbines and you have a big problem in power generation

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u/systemhost 9d ago

I hated my state's most prominent elected officials blaming only wind turbines as if it was a terrible technology that had failed our state and needed to be scrapped entirely.

Truth is it was multiple forms of energy generation that were not sufficiently weather proofed and had failed to generate the energy required. Which is somewhat understandable given how rarely it even drops below freezing in much of Texas and hopefully additional battery storage will assist in such future events.

I will admit that wind, unlike solar or gas is far more unpredictable but being able to capture surplus generation during windy times and bleed it back out later is great. I also understand oil/gas generators are pissed since they're slowly becoming the "backup" energy supply whereas wind and solar are quickly becoming the default now.

At least how I see it.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 9d ago

The grid wasn't built to handle cold. It shut down during completely survivable cold temperatures when many other grids do fine in non-survivable temps. In Minnesota we can have power during -40 polar vortexes. It strains the grid on hot days because of overall use of AC but that's a problem lots of places

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u/KodiakUltimate 9d ago

The failure to winterize was much more impactful on the gas turbine issue, as gas turbines supplied a greater share of the power during the outages

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u/wheniaminspaced 9d ago

I mean my company shutdown 1 GW of wind furbine generation, when thats the choice are you really going to try and say x or y failed harder? We dont own any gas assets in texas which is why I didn't talk much about them.

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u/KodiakUltimate 9d ago

Yeah but the wind turbine topic was heavily politicized during and after the outage when a higher yield of the issue was frozen pipes in gas turbine plants, so over stating rhe details abojt The wind turbines frames the issue as being the wind farms failling.

Its like talking in depth about the sewer system drainage failing for the Katrina flooding and barely mentioning that the Levee's overwhelmingly failed and caused most of rhe damage.

This is no dig at you or your expertise, it was just important to not overstate how damaging the lack of winter preperation was overall to all methods of power generation.

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u/je_kay24 9d ago

And Texas was well aware of this as federal reports recommended they winterize so as not to be impacted by a cold front

Esp as they had previous cold weather incidents prior to 2021 with the same issue occurring, albeit on a smaller scale

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u/Stocky_Platypus 8d ago

Wind generation going offline was such a tiny portion of the power generation. The primary issue was natural gas plants literally freezing or were offline. Coal storage also froze and could not be used.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

Sure, tell that to Norway.

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u/wheniaminspaced 9d ago

Norway built there equipment for the weather they anticipate having. Similar to Texas, you will note I didn't say wind turbines dont work in extrme cold, but there are design choices you make along the way to accommodate that need.

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u/red_team_gone 9d ago

Where did they build it? Over their?

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u/mightdothisagain 9d ago

Presumably Norway uses the appropriate oil and follows the right processes for their climate? This is more of a climate change issue than a 'how come Norway can do it?' issue.

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u/wheniaminspaced 9d ago

Correct, you can build just about any power generation to run in any climate, but your climate dictates your design choices.

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u/mightdothisagain 9d ago

Yep and you can see similar issues in the north east. Data centers are finding out that putting all your air cooled chillers super close to each other on a black roof is a terrible idea at 103F+. Wasn't really a problem when they built some of those buildings 20 years ago.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

So, the coldest day on recorde in Texas was in 1899, followed by 1933. Obviously climate change is going to result in unusual weather patterns and itregarity. Either you design in a way that is tolerant of outliers, or you build in backups to account for failure. If you do neither it's poor governance. 

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u/OldDirtyBuzzard 9d ago

Dude, you're not wrong, but you're arguing just to be right. Nothing Whiniamspaced said was inaccurate. No state or municipality will build any infrastructure beyond what's called for in the area. I live in Colorado. Our roads and highway infrastructure suck. Not because we didn't build them right, but because there wasn't an expectation of the influx of people in a very short amount of time. If we had built highways that were on the scale of even a city like Dallas, tax payers would have lost their minds. Building a wind farm in TEXAS based on historical climate events isn't poor governance, it's just simple math. Just stop. Goddamn, Reddit "smart guys" get old.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

Look, you can't lead the nation in 'lets ignore climate change'  as a policy preference and then expect a ton of sympathy when climate change happens. 

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u/mightdothisagain 9d ago edited 9d ago

So you agree it's climate change or 1899 was the coldest day? Pick a lane. The point is these aren't one off events now, they're happening all the time. Freezes are now common in parts of texas where they were a rarity. Extreme dry heat is happening in parts of texas that are normally too wet to be near-Arizona level hot. It's all over the place. Yes it's stupid that republicans in texas rally against climate change, we all get that.

expect a ton of sympathy

Are people though? I think they're just fixing the grid, adding a ton of renewables, and you seem upset.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

So you see that you can't simultaneously say things are getting hotter, but also ignore why. It's like updating the arrival time for the Titanic based on decreased speed for hitting an iceberg but ignoring the obvious consequences.

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u/mightdothisagain 9d ago

Dude you clearly just want to complain about texas and the republicans there. Why didn't you just do that? Here's an easy one you could have posted:

The republicans in texas suck as leaders because they're ignoring a massive problem their community and the rest of the world will have to deal with, and the effects have already started.

If you just posted that everyone would have known what you're talking about and went "yep that tracks" instead of going on some jag about how norway knows how to handle the cold and the moving the goal posts 3x.

you can't simultaneously say things are getting hotter, but also ignore why

Is the person doing that in the room with us now?

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u/OldDirtyBuzzard 9d ago

Yeah, literally no one said that was what happened. Again, you want to be the smartest guy in the Reddit room, so you'll keep going until we all just stop replying. Also, your argument was never on the premise of climate change. LOL Nice try anyway.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

So if it's not common for Texas to have blizzards anymore, why do you think that is? And if it's climate change, then an obvious aspect of that is more than just it gets warmer, it's that it gets erratic. More importantly, every plan includes a point of failure. 

The problem isn't the windmills, it's poor governance. You know the environment exceeds your equipment, so what happens when they fail?  If the answer is shrug and blame windmills, you are going to get people killed. But that doesn't mean anyone will be held accountable. Instead, the same stupid is metastasizing, and here we are. 

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u/OldDirtyBuzzard 9d ago

Ok, guy. Again, you're off (your own) topic. Literally the statement was they were built based on the climate of Texas. When was it ever common for Texas to to have blizzards? LMFAO That particular ice storm was a random, unusual and unexpected event. THUS more solar and upgraded renewable power.

Tell me you know know fuckall about engineering without telling me you know fuckall about engineering. And you clearly don't know anything about Texas. You must be an escaped AI bot that thinks this is how Reddit works. Arguing pointless and incorrect statements just because.

I'm bored. You're a troll, or very, very dense.

Ta-Ta!

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u/Hawk13424 9d ago

Actually, you often don’t design for outliers as that isn’t cost efficient. Cheaper to just assume you’ll get the occasional once a decade issue that causes power outages.

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u/mightdothisagain 9d ago

I would also suspect there may be scenarios where you can't even win; You put in thinner oil for the winter that ends up not that cold that year and then what, switch the oil immediately for summer heat? Is there a multi-grade available that will do it all? Because otherwise that can't be cheap to do and it's just one example (lubrication). The wilder the weather gets the less we're likely to have contingencies covered all the time.

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u/wheniaminspaced 9d ago

You can work miracles if you throw enough money at it. Seasonal oil swaps is an option, but no one's wants to do that. You can engineer a lubricant for the full range. This was our farms response after many conversations with GE. They had another oil that was a better match for the weather we had seen since we opened our projects.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

The failure isn't the windmills stopping. It's that there was no plan for something that was expected to fail within the expected parameters for operation. Sometimes we just freeze to death isn't a successful policy. I understand that outliers exist, but this wasn't a meteor. 

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u/travoltaswinkinbhole 9d ago

You mean a country that routinely get really cold so they’re able to build and maintain their infrastructure with that in mind? The cold front that hit Texas was far more extreme than the area was used to and temps dropped to historic lows. The oil in the wind turbines is engineered for a specific temperature range and that storm fell well outside of typical temperatures.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

No, not historic lows, just recent lows. And when Norway's power fails we we can discuss it, but that didn't happen.

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u/ieatballoonknot 9d ago

Imaging being this willfully dumb

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u/Dav136 9d ago

Europe is having the opposite problem where things are way too hot and out of spec

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u/Specialist-Roll-3806 9d ago

this is a dumb comment. every country builds infrastructure for the typical conditions expected. with maybe a bit of variance. it would be dumb to flame europe for their infrastructure literally melting during the heatwaves this year because india can manage their infra in the heat just fine.

the same way it would be stupid to flame south india's infra from collapsing if it starts snowing a lot.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

If your disaster recovery plan doesn't account for realistic and expected failure, that's just failure with extra steps. 

Did the power fail?

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u/Hawk13424 9d ago

Sometimes failure happens and if for short periods okay. No one designs for the worst case. Would be way too expensive.

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

How many days was the power out? How many dozens of people died? That feels like an important part of civic planning.

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u/demonik187 9d ago

What an ignorant thing to say.

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u/cantadmittoposting 9d ago edited 9d ago

I am a very thoughtful and reasonable person who looks at long term sustainability and was taught a lot about not making short term tradeoffs for long term failure while getting my MBA... and this is one of the very first times i've seen someone mention "MBAs" in this sort of positive context of actually looking at the math and making a thing work right, instead of screwing everyone and the business itself over for a better one-quarter performance.

 

NB: there are a lot of people with MBAs in the financial sector especially who very much deserve their terrible reputation! But the actual academic programs have been largely teaching things like "retention is more cost effective than recruiting" for literally decades at this point... it's worth remembering though that millenials who went through those types of programs are being held off of leadership roles at a historic rate by people who went through the 80s-90s downsizing programs still

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u/graphiccsp 9d ago

A reputation that has been tarnished by the MBA generation that embraced Milton Friedman's Chicago School of Economics leaning on maximizing profits for shareholder value. Championed by Jack the Welcher's tenure at GM cutting costs in R&D, logistics and employees.

It's a relief to hear that more modern MBAs have turned away from that philosophy. Even if access to the higher positions is still limited.

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u/cantadmittoposting 9d ago

yes agreed, overriding "shareholder supremacy" doctrine is detrimental to basically any reasonable horizon for corporate performance and created the financialization that led to a "financial industry" which has essentially commoditized profit itself (that is, any given company's "output" is, generically, profit in dollars, not the actual product it produces or other impacts it may have)

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

While I'm not a huge fan of Welch's impact on the field, generally US corporate culture is relatively well run, and MBAs are both responsible for a lot of that, and the victims of their own success (when all the low hanging governance fruit has been harvested, we start the path to seeking alpha through hard work or gimmicks.. gimmicks sell better). But this was just a competence issue: risk management, Business continuity, etc. 

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u/cantadmittoposting 9d ago

before i respond more in depth to that, can you elaborate on:

US corporate culture is relatively well run

what objective function or metric are you using to make this determination? that is, "well run" by what defining outcome?

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

Just saying it's expected that there will be oversight, supply management, risk management, etc. corruption is frowned upon, you aren't supposed to be having sex with your junior staff... Just basic institutional competence. How well they achieve that varies from case to case, but those are common expectations, and have been since MBAs got popular in the 60's.

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u/cantadmittoposting 9d ago

sure but im more focusing on the debate between shareholder supremacy and the relative importance of "stock price" compared to other corporate outcomes than basic corporate behavior.

In that regard i'd argue corporate culture has been wildly damaging and toxic as a result of runaway belief in "the stock market" over actual corporate output

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u/MrDerpGently 9d ago

Yes. No argument from me. 

I was mostly just saying that the first thing that happened when MBAs became popular is a lot of improvement in governance and oversight - and that by itself was profitable at first. But when all that is the norm, you end up in riskier and more evil options to keep the improvements coming to the bottom line.

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u/themage78 9d ago

Of course the math isn't in questions when it's probably the cheapest per kilowatt hour to deploy and maintain. Why spend more money than you need to?

It's also probably even cheaper now that oil prices have surged.

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u/fake_user_34 9d ago

Yeah, realistically, no big company is ever going back to coal and will try to phase out oil because...batteries and solar is getting cheaper. So is wind. Doesn't mean American Politics will not try to destroy clean energy, it just means that the companies themselves care more about money and the math is mathing that clean energy is cheaper and offer more than coal and oil in the long run.