Is the Texas Grid Ready for This Year’s Polar Vortex?

In what now seems an almost annual event, Texas, the Midwest, and the Deep South are anticipating another episode of extreme cold, this time starting in the third week of January. The fear initially was that this might be like 2021’s winter storm Uri which triggered a grid collapse resulting in a days long power outage and hundreds of weather-related deaths across the state. As we write, It appears that the predicted polar vortex will be more benign from a grid perspective with less ice and a deep cold spell of more limited duration. ERCOT,…