Natural disasters ain’t cheap! But you know what is MORE costly? The man-made disasters. I’m expecting many, many more in the next two years. :(
The Texas power disaster of Feb 2021 was entirely caused by people in positions of power making bad decisions that are rate payer has to cover. It had little to do with the weather.
1. Unforced error of building expensive wind and solar generation that does not produce power during deep winter arctic fronts. Pushed by ERCOT and the Power Generating Companies to adhere to a left-wing agenda.
2. Not performing winterization of equipment cutting corners on good operational management and then having equipment fail solely because common and proper winterization steps were not taken. This is solely on the operating companies.
3. Regulating agency, ERCOT, failed completely in the oversight due to political appointees most of whom were from out of state and have political agendas and put Texas citizens energy needs last.
4. Governor Abbott failing to manage ERCOT.
The weather was simply the trigger for the failure. Had the above people simply performed their jobs satisfactorily, the weather would have been a non-event.