No News About ERCOT Is Good News For Texas

This week has been one of the busiest weeks in memory where energy news is concerned, especially as it relates to the massive changes to federal energy policies being invoked by new President Donald Trump. That was all expected, but one thing many observers did not expect has been the dearth of headline news related to the Texas power grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Speaking as a Texan myself, no news about ERCOT and the grid always comes as good news, given that whenever the grid manager is in the news, it generally means something has failed and people have lost power. As this week’s extreme cold weather system approached the Lone Star State, a great deal of speculation centered around whether ERCOT would need to resort to rolling blackouts to maintain grid integrity as virtually the entire state dropped into below freezing temperatures for several days.

HOUSTON, TEXAS - JANUARY 21: People sled along the hills of Eleanor Tinsley Park in laundry baskets, storage boxes, and other found items as winter storm Enzo brings heavy bands of snow and sleet on January 21, 2025 in Houston, Texas. Houston and the surrounding areas are predicted to receive three to six inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service. (Photo by Danielle Villasana/Getty Images)Getty Images

A Gulf Coast Blizzard Raises Concerns

Concerns intensified early in the week as a wet low-pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico (or is it officially the Gulf of America now?) collided with the arctic front to create significant snowfall across the southern third of the state. Had anyone told me on Sunday that the City of Lake Charles, LA - just 30 miles east of the Texas border - would fall under its first-ever blizzard warning, as it did on Tuesday, and that Houston’s kids would be snowboarding and sledding in the city’s parks, I would have been outside in 20-degree temperatures fully testing out my costly natural gas home generator.

But the Texas grid performed so admirably that it’s almost giving me buyer’s remorse about making such a big investment in home energy security following the tragic events of 2021’s Winter Storm Uri.