As a winter storm is forecast to move into North Texas this weekend, energy officials say they do not expect a repeat of the widespread power failures seen during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, though residents are still urged to prepare for possible localized outages.
A Winter Storm Watch is in effect from Friday afternoon through late Saturday night for Denton County, with forecasters warning of moderate to heavy accumulations of snow, sleet or ice and dangerously cold temperatures.
Keith Nix of Lantana, vice president of operations for Texas-New Mexico Power, said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the state’s power grid, does not anticipate major supply problems during this storm.
“ERCOT is telling all of the grid operators that they do not see supply issues for the coming weekend, and my gut tells me that’s true as well,” Nix said.
Nix said several key differences separate this storm from the catastrophic freeze of February 2021. Most notably, the entire state is not expected to remain below freezing for an extended period.
“The biggest one is the entire state will not be exposed to below-freezing temperatures for as many hours as was the case in 2021,” he said. “Many of the power plants that froze up then won’t be exposed to long-term freezing now.”
He also said many generation facilities have since been winterized and repeatedly inspected, adding that recent cold snaps have not significantly affected them. Additional generation capacity, including natural gas turbines and battery storage, has also come online since 2021, and winds in West Texas are expected to support power production via wind turbines.
“From a resource perspective, which was what 2021 was, I don’t see many issues,” Nix said.
However, he cautioned that ice remains a concern for power delivery systems.
“Ice brings the potential of distribution and transmission issues in the form of broken poles, downed trees and downed conductors,” he said, noting that significant ice accumulation could still lead to outages even if the overall grid remains stable.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week that he directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to activate state emergency response resources ahead of the storm, which is expected to begin impacting parts of Texas on Thursday.
Residents are encouraged to monitor local forecasts, prepare for hazardous travel conditions and have emergency supplies on hand in case of localized power disruptions.
