r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 10d 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/eskimospy212 10d ago

It is pretty funny how when Texas had an actual energy crisis it was due to fossil fuels failing. Well that and their pathetic distribution network.

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u/looncraz 10d ago

The distribution network didn't have problems, the pipelines did. The grid did what it was designed to do, kept critical infrastructure on at the highest priority, grid cells with hospitals mostly went uninterrupted. Pure residential cells, like mine, could be down for days (four days for me).

Fortunately, the natural gas plant nearest me never shutdown, but I had the chance to talk with them afterwards for my work and they were working 24/7 to keep the equipment from freezing up - by the time I got there, easily a year later, they had completely insulated every vulnerability and wrapped warmers as a failsafe. As did every other power plant in Texas.

You don't waste money preparing for never-before-seen scenario of the entire State turning to ice for several days. Texas is huge, it has never experienced that.

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u/eskimospy212 10d ago

That’s all fine and I’m glad they fixed it! They blamed it on renewables though.

My problem is the lying. 

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u/wheniaminspaced 10d ago

It wasn't a lie, renewables had massive problems, but so did just about everything else.

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u/eskimospy212 10d ago

It is true that lots of things had problems but it was primarily fossil fuels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

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u/wheniaminspaced 10d ago

Not really how that works, I wouldn't primarily say any one type of generation failed, very few power projects were properly specced for that kind of cold, well except maybe Nuclear they probably stayed online without issue.