With nuclear and gad powered electric generating plants we would not have these power failures.
It was gas plants that went down this time, 6 of them taking 2900 megawatts with them. In February the gas grid froze and 40,000+ megawatts of thermal power went down that’s half the typical winter grid capacity btw. Texas doesn’t store gas its use it as it comes out the ground. The well heads have no freeze protection nor do the surface gathering lines. It’s a recipe for disaster. Texas needs to invest heavy into salt dome gas storage of at least a week of total gas grid capacity the Texas RRC must mandate this as the industry will never swallow the multiple billions it will cost. Then Texas needs to winterize half or more of the well heads and gathering systems. Additionally gas turbines need to be modified to have dual fuel burner cans like they do in the Midwest and North East. Those turbines then should have 3 to 4 days of back up fuel oil in storage tanks inside the plant boundary ready for when not if the gas grid goes down. That’s another hundred million or so. Contrary to what people in the internet say those actually in the industry who had access to the real time data from ERCOT and the RRC and also the report to the Texas legislature following feb it was the loss of 40000 megawatts of thermal power that crashed the grid. Wind at that time was forecast to be under 8000 megawatts the turbines while some froze in still made 4000 megawatts half of the forecast amount none of which was put in the firm bank by ERCOT they were counting on gas turbines to carry the 80,000 megawatts of demand on night one when 40,000 megawatts of gas and nuclear power dropped out it was panic mode. 60% of Texas gas supply froze up and /or was offline due to pumping power issues the gas grid nearly collapsed leaving everyone cold. Residential is prioritized over commercial including power plants so when the gas pressures dropped commercial was cut and power plants were next a good amount of that 40 gw drop out was lack if fuels at the plant gate. Dual fuel turbines solve that issue with salt dome gas storage to firm up the grid when the well heads freeze in. I watched the live data streams with commercial level access tthat February Texas came within 4 minutes of a black start event with the grid down for weeks to mouths with a black start event. The grid dropped to 59.2 hz the lowest I have ever seen a grid go and not collapse outright. Only the system inertia saved the day and just barely had less load been shed a black start was a certainty.