As of peak during the ice storm in Texas earlier this week, there were over 400,000 people without electricity across the state. Remember: Wind turbines don’t work in ice storms; solar energy doesn’t work in ice fog. Gov. Greg Abbot insisted during the crisis, however, that generation would not be the trouble. “Any outages are due to local issues like fallen trees and downed power lines,” he said, maintaining that the Texas power grid otherwise has enough power. That may be true until it isn’t.
As even NBC 5, TV in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas, reported Jan. 30, about the oncoming ice storm, “Grid experts who spoke to NBC 5 cautioned the ice may impact wind turbines that produce power in West Texas and the Texas Panhandle, and cloudy conditions are expected to limit solar power production…”
So far, the weather has ended up more favorably than at the time of the February, 2021 “Winter Storm Uri” when millions were knocked out of power, thanks to the inadequate base power capacity, given the significant share of unreliable wind and solar. Still, as of yesterday morning, 260,000 in the state remained in the dark and cold.
