Texans may still wonder whether the grid will keep them safe during a severe winter storm. Courtesy photo

Houstonians may feel anxious as the city and state experience freezing temperatures this winter. Every year since 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, Texans wonder whether the grid will keep them safe in the face of another. The record-breaking cold temperatures of Uri exposed a crucial vulnerability in the state’s power and water infrastructure.

According to ERCOT’s 6-day supply and demand forecast from January 3, 2025, it expected plenty of generation capacity to meet the needs of Texans during the most recent period of colder weather. So why did the grid fail so spectacularly in 2021?

  1. Demand for electricity surged as millions of people tried to heat their homes.
  2. ERCOT was simply not prepared despite previous winter storms of similar intensity to offer lessons in similarities.
  3. The state was highly dependent on un-winterized natural gas power plants for electricity.
  4. The Texas grid is isolated from other states.
  5. Failures of communication and coordination between ERCOT, state officials, utility companies, gas suppliers, electricity providers, and power plants contributed to the devastating outages.

The domino effect resulted in power outages for millions of Texans, the deaths of hundreds of Texans, billions of dollars in damages, with some households going nearly a week without heat, power, and water. This catastrophe highlighted the need for swift and sweeping upgrades and protections against future extreme weather events.

Texas State Legislature Responds

Texas lawmakers proactively introduced and passed legislation aimed at upgrading the state’s power infrastructure and preventing repeated failures within weeks of the storm. Senate Bill 3 (SB3) measures included:

  • Requirements to weatherize gas supply chain and pipeline facilities that sell electric energy within ERCOT.
  • The ability to impose penalties of up to $1 million for violation of these requirements.
  • Requirement for ERCOT to procure new power sources to ensure grid reliability during extreme heat and extreme cold.
  • Designation of specific natural gas facilities that are critical for power delivery during energy emergencies.
  • Development of an alert system that is to be activated when supply may not be able to meet demand.
  • Requirement for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, to establish an emergency wholesale electricity pricing program.

Texas Weatherization by Natural Gas Plants

In a Railroad Commission of Texas document published May 2024 and geared to gas supply chain and pipeline facilities, dozens of solutions were outlined with weatherization best practices and approaches in an effort to prevent another climate-affected crisis from severe winter weather.

Some solutions included:

  • Installation of insulation on critical components of a facility.
  • Construction of permanent or temporary windbreaks, housing, or barriers around critical equipment to reduce the impact of windchill.
  • Guidelines for the removal of ice and snow from critical equipment.
  • Instructions for the use of temporary heat systems on localized freezing problems like heating blankets, catalytic heaters, or fuel line heaters.

According to Daniel Cohan, professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, power plants across Texas have installed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weatherization upgrades to their facilities. In ERCOT’s January 2022 winterization report, it stated that 321 out of 324 electricity generation units and transmission facilities fully passed the new regulations.

Is the Texas Grid Adequately Winterized?

Utilities, power generators, ERCOT, and the PUCT have all made changes to their operations and facilities since 2021 to be better prepared for extreme winter weather. Are these changes enough? Has the Texas grid officially been winterized?

This season, as winter weather tests Texans, residents may potentially experience localized outages. When tree branches cannot support the weight of the ice, they can snap and knock out power lines to neighborhoods across the state. In the instance of a downed power line, we must rely on regional utilities to act quickly to restore power.

The specific legislation enacted by the Texas state government in response to the 2021 disaster addressed to the relevant parties ensures that they have done their part to winterize the Texas grid.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

If we want to see real change, we need action by all parties. Photo via Getty Images

Texas vs the nation: Comparing energy grid resilience across America

guest column

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has proven disastrous for the United States. On July 8th, Hurricane Beryl barreled into Texas as a Category 1 storm knocking out power for nearly 3 million, causing over $2.5 billion in damages, and resulting in the deaths of at least 42 people.

More recently, Hurricanes Helene and Milton tore through the East Coast, dropping trillions of gallons of rain on Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, causing dams to collapse, flash flooding, trees to fall, millions of power outages, complete destruction of homes and businesses, and the deaths of hundreds.

Amidst the horror and rescue efforts, wariness of the increasing strength of natural disasters, and repeated failures of energy grids around the nation begs a few questions.

  1. Is there a version of a power grid that can better endure hurricanes, heat waves, and freezes?
  2. How does the Texas grid compare to other regional grids in the United States?
  3. What can we do to solve our power grid problems and who is responsible for implementing these solutions?

Hurricane-proof grids do not exist

There is no version of a grid anywhere in the United States that can withstand the brunt of a massive hurricane without experiencing outages.

The wind, rain, and flooding are simply too much to handle.

Some might wonder, “What if we buried the power lines?” Surely, removing the power lines from the harsh winds, rain, flying debris, and falling tree branches would be enough to keep the lights on, right?

Well, not necessarily. Putting aside the fact that burying power lines is incredibly expensive – estimates range from thousands to millions of dollars per mile buried – extended exposure to water from flood surges can still cause damage to buried lines. To pile on further, flood surges are likely to seriously damage substations and transformers. When those components fail, there’s no power to run through the lines, buried or otherwise.

Heat waves and winter freezes are a different story

During extreme weather events like heat waves or winter freezes, the strain on the grid goes beyond simple issues of generation and distribution—it’s also a matter of human behavior and grid limitations.

Building and maintaining a power grid is extremely expensive, and storing electricity is not only costly but technically challenging. Most grids are designed with little "buffer" capacity to handle peak demand moments, because much of the infrastructure sits idle during normal conditions. Imagine investing billions of dollars in a power plant or wind farm that only operates at full capacity a fraction of the time. It’s difficult to recoup that investment.

When extreme weather hits, demand spikes significantly while supply remains relatively static, pushing the grid to its limits. This imbalance makes it hard to keep up with the surge in energy usage.

At the same time, our relationship with electricity has changed—our need for electricity has only increased. We’ve developed habits—like setting thermostats to 70 degrees or lower during summer heat waves or keeping homes balmy in winter— that, while comfortable, place additional strain on the system.

Behavioral changes, alongside investments in infrastructure, are crucial to ensuring we avoid blackouts as energy demand continues to rise in the coming years.

How the Texas grid compares to other regional grids

Is the Texas grid really in worse shape compared to other regional grids around the U.S.?

In some ways, Texas is lagging and in others, Texas is a leader.

One thing you might have heard about the Texas grid is that it is isolated, which restricts the ability to import power from neighboring regions during emergencies. Unfortunately, connecting the Texas grid further would not be a one-size fits all solution for fixing its problems. The neighboring grids would need to have excess supply at the exact moment of need and have the capacity to transmit that power to the right areas of need. Situations often arise where the Texas grid needs more power, but New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana have none to spare because they are experiencing similar issues with supply and demand at the same time. Furthermore, even if our neighbors have some power to share, the infrastructure may not be sufficient to deliver the power where it’s needed within the state.

On the other hand, Texas is leading the nation in terms of renewable development. The Lone Star State is #1 in wind power and #2 in solar power, only behind California. There are, of course, valid concerns about heavy reliance on renewables when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, compounded by a lack of large-scale battery storage. Then, there’s the underlying cost and ecological footprint associated with the manufacturing of those batteries.

Yet, the only state with more utility-scale storage than Texas is California.

In recent years, ERCOT has pushed generators and utility companies to increase their winterization efforts, incentivize the buildout of renewables and electricity storage. You might have also heard about the Texas Electricity Fund, which represents the state’s latest effort to further incentivize grid stability. Improvements are underway, but they may not be enough if homeowners and renters across the state are unwilling to set their thermostats a bit higher during extended heatwaves.

How can we fix the Texas grid?

Here’s the reality we must face – a disaster-proof, on-demand, renewable-powered grid is extremely expensive and cannot be implemented quickly. We must come to terms with the fact that the impact of natural disasters is unavoidable, no matter how much we “upgrade” the infrastructure.

Ironically, the most impactful solution out there is free and requires only a few seconds to implement. Simple changes to human behavior are the strongest tool we have at our disposal to prevent blackouts in Texas. By decreasing our collective demand for electricity at the right times, we can all help keep the lights on and prices low.

During peak hours, the cumulative effort is as simple as turning off the lights, turning the thermostat up a few degrees, and running appliances like dishwashers and laundry machines overnight.

Another important element we cannot avoid addressing is global warming. As the temperatures on the surface of the earth increase, the weather changes, and, in many cases, it makes it more volatile.

The more fossil fuels we burn, the more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to more volatile weather. Volatile weather, in turn, contributes to extreme grid strain in the form of heat waves, winter freezes, and hurricanes. This is no simple matter to solve, because the energy needs and capabilities of different countries differ. That is why some countries around the globe continue to expand their investments in coal as an energy source, the fossil fuel that burns the dirtiest and releases the most greenhouse gases per unit.

While governments and private organizations continue to advance carbon capture, renewable, and energy storage technology efficiency, the individual could aid these efforts by changing our behavior. There are many impactful things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint, like adjusting our thermostat a few degrees, eating less red meat, driving cars less often, and purchasing fewer single-use plastics to name a few.

If we want to see real change, we need action by all parties. The complex system of generation, transmission, and consumption all need to experience radical change, or the vicious cycle will only continue.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston startup Sage Geosystems has tapped a utility provider for an energy storage facility in the San Antonio metro area. Photo via Getty Images

Houston energy startup selects Texas location for first storage facility

headed west

Houston-based geothermal energy startup Sage Geosystems has teamed up with a utility provider for an energy storage facility in the San Antonio metro area.

The three-megawatt EarthStore facility will be on land controlled by the San Miguel Electric Cooperative, which produces electricity for customers in 47 South Texas counties. The facility will be located in the town of Christine, near the cooperative’s coal-fired power plant.

Sage says its energy storage system will be paired with solar energy to supply power for the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The facility is set to open later this year.

“Once operational, our EarthStore facility in Christine will be the first geothermal energy storage system to store potential energy deep in the earth and supply electrons to a power grid,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, says in a news release.

The facility is being designed to store geothermal energy during six- to 10-hour periods.

“Long-duration energy storage is crucial for the ERCOT utility grid, especially with the increasing integration of intermittent wind and solar power generation,” says Craig Courter, CEO of the San Miguel Electric Cooperative.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Last year's winter storm has made ERCOT a household name. CenterPoint Energy/Facebook

New ERCOT dashboards let Houstonians check energy supply in real-time

power check

With winter temperatures and last year's freeze still top of mind for many Texans, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has rolled out new dashboards to help you keep tabs on the energy supply in real-time.

Local may not have heard of ERCOT until the winter storm in February 2021 that would go on to take the lives of 246 people after the freeze overwhelmed the power grid and left millions freezing in the dark.

Since that storm, anxiety has been high. But these dashboards may help Texans get a gauge on what we're dealing with at any given moment.

The ERCOT site features find nine different dashboards on the Grid and Market Conditions page. Each dashboard has a timestamp of when it was last updated and if you select "Full View," you'll get a detailed explanation of what the graphs mean.

If things are normal, the grid will be green. But if it's black, that means we're in an energy emergency level 3, so expect controlled outages. Energy conservation would also be critical.

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Continue reading and watch the full video on our news partner ABC13.

Austin-based Tesla has released new information on its Megapack project, which is being stood up south of Houston in Angleton. Screenshot via YouTube.

Tesla reveals details on massive power storage facility being built south of Houston

texas-sized energy project

Tesla Inc. has taken the wraps off a backup-power storage project in Angleton designed to ease the impact of incidents like February 2021’s near-collapse of the Texas power grid.

The project’s 81 Tesla Megapacks are aimed at providing backup power while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Tesla says its Megapack batteries store clean energy that can be used anytime.

The Bloomberg news service reported last March that the more than 100-megawatt Angleton project could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day. Austin-based Tesla unveiled the 2.5-acre project in a YouTube video posted January 6.

A presentation made to the Angleton City Council by Plus Power LLC indicates the Megapack project is supposed to be part of a larger energy-storage “park.” The park could generate about $1 million in property tax revenue over a 10-year span, the presentation says.

San Francisco-based Plus Power, which has an office in Spring, develops battery-equipped systems for energy storage.

The Megapack project, built by Tesla subsidiary Gambit Energy Storage LLC, is registered with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), according to Bloomberg. The quasi-governmental agency operates about 95 percent of the Texas power grid. ERCOT came under intense criticism after last February’s massive winter storm left millions of Texans without power for several days.

Tesla’s new energy-storage system is adjacent to a Texas-New Mexico Power Co. substation, Bloomberg says.

“Tesla’s energy-storage business on a percentage basis is growing faster than their car business, and it’s only going to accelerate,” Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at Wood MacKenzie Power and Renewables, told Bloomberg. “They are absolutely respected as a player, and they are competing aggressively on price.”

In November, the Texas Public Utilities Commission approved an application from Tesla subsidiary Tesla Energy Ventures LLC to be a retail provider of electricity in Texas. The power will be sold to residential and business customers throughout the ERCOT grid.

It's only going to get hotter in Houston — can the grid take it? Switching to solar is a way to avoid having to worry about that question, says this expert. Photo courtesy of Freedom Solar

Expert: Solar energy is a necessary solution to summer power grid insecurity in Texas

guest column

You know the old adage: "If you don't like the weather here, wait five minutes." Texas weather is not just unpredictable; it can be downright bipolar. I don't need to remind you of the knockout punch Old Man Winter delivered last February, even to parts of the state where hard freezes are few and a "snow event" usually amounts to a dusting. It will be a long time before Texans forget spending a week without power in single-digit temperatures — huddled together in their homes under mountains of blankets — with no heat, no way to bathe or cook, and no escape.

The massive power outages of Valentine's Day week spurred public outrage and a full-throated demand that state leaders take decisive steps to make Texas' electric grid sustainable. The legislature was only a month into its 140-day regular session at the time, but still failed to do anything substantial to fix the grid before adjourning May 31.

Now — well ahead of the hottest days of summer — Texans are wondering why the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is already asking them to set their thermostats at 78 degrees, turn off lights, avoid using their ovens or doing laundry in the evenings, and otherwise conserve energy. It was ERCOT's second such call since April. Some local energy companies have recommended setting thermostats even higher, and local rolling blackouts have continued in Dallas, Houston, and elsewhere in the state throughout the months of June and July. That may be fine for some people during Texas' scorching summer heat, but for others, it is untenable. For the elderly or infirmed, it could be deadly.

Experts have warned the grid is unreliable, the system is strained, and homeowners and businesses hover at near-constant risk for blackouts, unless the state does more to weatherize the grid, bring more generators back online, and provide more emergency backup power. Meanwhile, when temperatures hit triple digits and stay there for days, the blackout risks will skyrocket.

But there is one obvious solution to grid instability that will enable Texans to keep their homes and businesses comfortably cool during the hot summer months ahead, without setting their thermostats higher or timing their activities to government guidelines. Widespread distributed generation of solar energy, instead of the current emphasis on remotely located utility-scale solar, would provide a highly effective, long-term solution to decreasing strain on the ERCOT power grid.

That means dramatically increasing the number of solar installations on residential and commercial properties statewide. Consider the distance and infrastructure required to bring power from a West Texas solar farm to the state's big cities. That's not only a costly undertaking, it exposes the system to many vulnerabilities along the way. It makes more sense to install solar panels on-site, behind the meter, and pair them with storage for backup power.

The logic is simple: Increasing the number of homes and businesses with on-site solar power would decrease the burden on the grid and help insulate it against failure. Further, by installing home batteries such as the Tesla Powerwall for backup power, residents can control their own power supply and ensure its reliability, even during extreme weather events—summer or winter.

These technologies are cost-efficient and readily available today. A few months ago, Congress extended the 26 percent federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) — which also applies to batteries paired with solar — through 2021 (dropping to 22 percent in 2022), making the move to solar and backup power even more sensible.

State leaders have tried to lay the blame for last winter's power outages on renewable energy. But failures of natural gas power plants, not renewable generators, caused the grid failures that led to those deadly blackouts.

On July 6, months after declaring "everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas," Governor Abbott ordered the PUC to take steps to overhaul the state's electric system. But the solutions he's offering—like constructing new coal, gas, and nuclear power plants and building their transmission lines faster—are giveaways to the fossil fuel industry and will take a long time to complete. Texas needs reliable power NOW.

Meanwhile, state officials are increasingly emphasizing conserving power during extreme temperatures, which suggests they don't even believe their assurances that no more blackouts lie ahead. On-site solar power is the obvious solution, both today and for the long-term health of our rapidly growing state and rapidly warming planet.

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Bret Biggart is CEO of Austin-based Freedom Solar, the leading turnkey solar energy installer in Texas, providing high-quality, cost-effective, reliable solar solutions for the residential and commercial markets.

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Texas Space Commission doles out $5.8 million to Houston companies

On A Mission

Two Houston-area companies have landed more than $5.8 million in funding from the Texas Space Commission.

The commission granted up to $5.5 million to Houston-based Axiom Space and up to $347,196 to Conroe-based FluxWorks.

The two-year-old commission previously awarded $95.3 million to 14 projects. A little over $34 million remains in the commission-managed Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund.

Axiom Space, a commercial spaceflight company, said the new funding will go toward the development of its orbital data center capabilities. By the end of this year, Axiom plans to launch two free-flying nodes in low-Earth orbit to support its orbital data center operations. More nodes are set to go online in the coming years.

“Axiom Space is actively evaluating how our [orbital data center] architecture can enhance critical U.S. capabilities, including the proposed Golden Dome missile defense architecture,” Jason Aspiotis, global director of in-space data and security at Axiom, said in a news release. “In this context, real-time, around-the-clock availability, secure orbital processing, and AI-driven autonomy are vital for ensuring mission success.”

Founded in 2021, FluxWorks provides magnetic gear technology that was developed at Texas A&M University.

In 2024, FluxWorks was one of two startups to receive the Technology in Space Prize, funded by Boeing and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which manages the International Space Station National Laboratory.

FluxWorks is testing the performance of magnetic gear in microgravity environments, such as the International Space Station.

“Gearboxes aim to reduce the mass of motors required in a variety of applications; however, the lubricant needed to make them work properly is not designed for use in extreme environments like space,” according to a 2024 news release about the Technology in Space Prize. “Magnetic gears do not require lubricant, making them an appealing alternative.”

The Texas Space Commission granted $25 million to Houston aerospace companies Starlab Space and Intuitive Machines earlier this year. Read more here.

3 Houston startups named most innovative in Texas by LexisNexis

report card

Three Houston companies claimed spots on LexisNexis's 10 Most Innovative Startups in Texas report, with two working in the geothermal energy space.

Sage Geosystems claimed the No. 3 spot on the list, and Fervo Energy followed closely behind at No. 5. Fintech unicorn HighRadius rounded out the list of Houston companies at No. 8.

LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions compiled the report. It was based on each company's Patent Asset Index, a proprietary metric from LexisNexis that identifies the strength and value of each company’s patent assets based on factors such as patent quality, geographic scope and size of the portfolio.

Houston tied with Austin, each with three companies represented on the list. Caris Life Sciences, a biotechnology company based in Dallas, claimed the top spot with a Patent Asset Index more than 5 times that of its next competitor, Apptronik, an Austin-based AI-powered humanoid robotics company.

“Texas has always been fertile ground for bold entrepreneurs, and these innovative startups carry that tradition forward with strong businesses based on outstanding patent assets,” Marco Richter, senior director of IP analytics and strategy for LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions, said in a release. “These companies have proven their innovation by creating the most valuable patent portfolios in a state that’s known for game-changing inventions and cutting-edge technologies.We are pleased to recognize Texas’ most innovative startups for turning their ideas into patented innovations and look forward to watching them scale, disrupt, and thrive on the foundation they’ve laid today.”

This year's list reflects a range in location and industry. Here's the full list of LexisNexis' 10 Most Innovative Startups in Texas, ranked by patent portfolios.

  1. Caris (Dallas)
  2. Apptronik (Austin)
  3. Sage Geosystems (Houston)
  4. HiddenLayer (Austin)
  5. Fervo Energy (Houston)
  6. Plus One Robotics (San Antonio)
  7. Diligent Robotics (Austin)
  8. HighRadius (Houston)
  9. LTK (Dallas)
  10. Eagle Eye Networks (Austin)

Sage Geosystems has partnered on major geothermal projects with the United States Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Unit, the U.S. Air Force and Meta Platforms. Sage's 3-megawatt commercial EarthStore geothermal energy storage facility in Christine, Texas, was expected to be completed by the end of last year.

Fervo Energy fully contracted its flagship 500 MW geothermal development, Cape Station, this spring. Cape Station is currently one of the world’s largest enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) developments, and the station will begin to deliver electricity to the grid in 2026. The company was recently named North American Company of the Year by research and consulting firm Cleantech Group and came in at No. 6 on Time magazine and Statista’s list of America’s Top GreenTech Companies of 2025. It's now considered a unicorn, meaning its valuation as a private company has surpassed $1 billion.

Meanwhile, HighRadius announced earlier this year that it plans to release a fully autonomous finance platform for the "office of the CFO" by 2027. The company reached unicorn status in 2020.

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This article originally appeared on Energy Capital HTX.

UH student earns prestigious award for cancer vaccine research

up-and-comer

Cole Woody, a biology major in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston, has been awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, becoming the first sophomore in UH history to earn the prestigious prize for research in natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Woody was recognized for his research on developing potential cancer vaccines through chimeric RNAs. The work specifically investigates how a vaccine can more aggressively target cancers.

Woody developed the MHCole Pipeline, a bioinformatic tool that predicts peptide-HLA binding affinities with nearly 100 percent improvement in data processing efficiency. The MHCole Pipeline aims to find cancer-specific targets and develop personalized vaccines. Woody is also a junior research associate at the UH Sequencing Core and works in Dr. Steven Hsesheng Lin’s lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Cole’s work ethic and dedication are unmatched,” Preethi Gunaratne, director of the UH Sequencing Core and professor of Biology & Biochemistry at NSM, said in a news release. “He consistently worked 60 to 70 hours a week, committing himself to learning new techniques and coding the MHCole pipeline.”

Woody plans to earn his MD-PhD and has been accepted into the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Early Access to Research Training (HEART) program. According to UH, recipients of the Goldwater Scholarship often go on to win various nationally prestigious awards.

"Cole’s ability to independently design and implement such a transformative tool at such an early stage in his career demonstrates his exceptional technical acumen and creative problem-solving skills, which should go a long way towards a promising career in immuno-oncology,” Gunaratne added in the release.