The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to prepare for cold weather Will Englund
Replay Video UP NEXT When it gets really cold, it can be hard to produce electricity, as customers in Texas and neighboring states are finding out. But it’s not impossible. Operators in Alaska, Canada, Maine, Norway and Siberia do it all the time. What has sent Texas reeling is not an engineering problem, nor is it the frozen wind turbines blamed by prominent Republicans. It is a financial structure for power generation that offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. In the name of deregulation and free markets, critics say, Texas has created an electric grid that puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service.
<figcaption> Snow at the Texas Capitol in Austin on Feb. 15, 2021. Texans are battling electric utility failures affecting more than 4 million households, a pandemic and a botched vaccine rollout. <cite>Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune</cite>
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As Texans struggle with terrible winter weather, electric utility failures affecting more than 4 million households, a pandemic and a botched vaccine rollout, a natural question arises: Do state leaders know what they're doing?