Being prepared: Has the Texas grid been adequately winterized?

Being Prepared

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.

Kelsey Hultberg, executive vice president of corporate communications and sustainability at Sunnova Energy, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Sunnova

Houston corporate communications expert on importance of messaging when scaling a tech company

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 207

Several years ago, Kelsey Hultberg decided to make a pivot. Looking for a role with career growth opportunities, the communications professional thought she'd find something at an oil and gas company, but then she met John Berger, founder and CEO of Sunnova, who was looking for someone to stand up their communications team amidst the solar energy company's growth.

"He hooked me," Hultberg shares on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "He said, 'I've got big plans for this company. I see where this energy industry is going, I see that we're prime for a transition, and I want to take this company public.' And I started a few weeks later."

Hultberg has been telling the story for Sunnova — which equips customers with solar and storage technology, providing them with energy independence — ever since, through scaling, new technologies, and its IPO in 2019.



Each phase of the company represented different challenges for Hultberg and her communications team. As she explains on the podcast, consistently conveying a strong message is key in any industry, but especially energy.

"Communication is critical," Hultberg says, "having a strategy and really being able to articulate who you are, what you stand for, what is your mission, what is your vision — and really beyond that, what is your strategy for how you move forward. ... You can never say the same thing to the same people too many times, especially when you're a company that some people have never heard of before."

And while there's a unique challenge to communications for energy transition companies, Hultberg says she views it as a huge opportunity as long as you have the right structure in place.

"Of course communications and being as strategic as possible with the story that you're telling and the narrative that you're weaving for your different audiences, but then you layer on an industry that's rapidly changing and is tumultuous at times," she says. "Being able to come back to the core mission and values is really incredible."

Hultberg says that when she originally joined the team in 2017, she thought a solar energy company in Houston was an interesting choice — and it was. Texas was not one of Sunnova's biggest markets at the time, Hultberg explains, but things are different now.

"Over the last couple of years, especially after Winter Storm Uri, where you saw a lot of people go without power. ... We had a lot of customers say, 'That can't happen again,'" she says. "You're seeing the adoption and uptick in solar in storage because they are looking for grid reliability and affordability and they aren't getting it from their utility providers."

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.

Texas is about a month away from the anniversary of Winter Storm Uri — would the state fair better if it saw a repeat in 2022? Photo by Lynn in Midtown via CultureMap

Opinion: Houston energy expert weighs in on if the state's power grid is ready for winter

guest column

The Winter Storm Uri, which struck Texas in February of 2021, was an unprecedented event in both severity and duration. At its most extreme, temperatures were as much as 40 to 50 degrees below their historic averages. The storm resulted in the largest controlled blackout in U.S. history, forcing the shedding of more than 23 gigawatts of load, the loss of power to 4.5 million homes and businesses for periods of one to four days, and the tragic loss of hundreds of lives.

A crisis of this magnitude has resulted in an intense re-examination of the Texas power grid. Not surprisingly, it has also resulted in record levels of finger-pointing and an ongoing search to identify the parties responsible. Among the casualties were all three Public Utility Commissioners that regulate the industry and a virtual purge of ERCOT, the organization that operates and manages the grid.

The Texas 87th Legislature filed an inordinate number of bills to address the electric system's failings, and Governor Abbott’s office has been vocal and actively working to ensure that there will never again be a repeat of the events of February 2021. The principal focus of the now reconstituted and expanded Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) has been defining and implementing changes to system rules and operations in order to extract a greater degree of reliability from existing assets and incentivize the construction of significantly more MW of dispatchable generation. Many of the changes implemented by the PUCT will provide the market with a greater cushion against shocks to the system, moving the market away from a crisis management mode and towards a more proactive footing. We can expect even more change once current policies are assessed and more aggressive proposals are analyzed to determine whether they offer more benefit than harm to the market.

Amid all the debate, discussion, and wringing of hands, only one report has come close to identifying the smoking gun at the center of the crisis: the need for weatherization. The notion that weatherizing of generating assets is the key to future reliability has been discussed ad nauseum, but the report issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on November 16, 2021, attributes an equal share of the blame to the natural gas producing, processing, and transportation sector and its inability to perform reliably under the harsh conditions of Uri.

In the areas affected worst by the storm, gas production in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana fell by more than 50 percent at its lowest point when compared to average production in the prior month. The Railroad Commission, not the Public Utility Commission, regulates natural gas transmission, and it was slow off the mark given the focus on generation. The Railroad Commission has now begun to implement weatherization requirements, with new initiatives slated to be in full effect for the winter of 2023.

It is imprudent to use “never” as a time scale, but I would place the probability at “remote” that Texas will see a recurrence of the events of February 2021 in 2022. In the unlikely event we did, the impacts would likely pale in comparison to those experienced last February. This is due both to the heightened state of preparedness with which the industry will approach the coming winter and the impact of changes put into effect by the PUCT as of January 1, 2022.

Governor Abbott has gone on record guaranteeing that the lights will stay on this winter, and I am inclined to agree. With the reinforcement of our fuel systems being mandated by the Railroad Commission, 2023 to 2025 should receive the same guarantee. Beyond that, as the demand for electricity in Texas continues to grow, we will need to rely on the initiatives under consideration by the PUCT to attract investment and innovation in new, dispatchable generation and flexible demand solutions to ensure long-term stability in the ERCOT market.

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Don Whaley is president at OhmConnect Texas and has worked for over 40 years in the natural gas, electricity, and renewables industries, with specific experience in deregulated markets across the U.S. and Canada. He founded Direct Energy Texas and served as its president during the early years of deregulation.

A new report from the University of Houston zooms in on Uri's damage by the numbers. Photo via CenterPoint Energy/Facebook

Report: Nearly 70 percent of Texans lost power during Winter Storm Uri, new UH report says

Uri by the numbers

Texans are painfully aware of the bitter loss caused by Winter Storm Uri; many are still coping with the after effects of the storm that set in on February 13.

But now, new figures reveal how ravaging the freeze was to the Lone Star State and its beleaguered residents.

At its peak, Uri left close to 4.5 million homes and businesses without power, killed more than 100 people, and caused an estimated $295 billion in damage. The storm is the single biggest insurance claim event in state history, as CultureMap previously reported.

More than two out of three Texans – some 69 percent – lost electricity at some point during the storm, for an average of 42 hours. Meanwhile, almost half – 49 percent – lost access to running water for an average of more than two days.

Additionally, nearly one-third of residents reported water damage in their home.

These numbers come from a just-released report by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. According to UH, the Hobby School conducted the online survey of Texas residents 18 and older who live in the 213 counties served by the Texas Electrical Grid, which is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

The full Hobby School report is available here.

Highlighting the frustrations millions have expressed since the storm has passed, nearly three out of four Texans – 74 percent – say they disapprove of ERCOT's performance during the winter storm — with 65 percent strongly disapproving. Some 78 percent of respondents claim they do not believe that the power outages in their area were carried out in an equitable manner.

Just how many Texans were okay with the council? Only 6 percent say they approve of ERCOT's widely criticized handling of the storm, per the survey. In the aftermath of the storm, seven ERCOT board members resigned following the near total failure of the state's power grid.

More than three-quarters of residents surveyed support policy reforms, which include requiring electricity generators to weatherize and boost their reserve capacity and natural gas companies to weatherize in order to be able to participate in the Texas market.

However, a majority of respondents oppose proposals that would require consumers to pay an additional fee in order to fund electricity generator weatherization efforts and to increase the amount of reserve electricity generation capacity, per the study.

The Hobby data produced other notable findings, including:

  • Some 61 percent of Texans prepared for the storm by buying additional food, 58 percent bought bottled water, and 55 percent filled their vehicle with gas. The next most common preparations were insulating pipes, covering or moving plants, and storing tap water.
  • A large number — 75 percent — reported difficulty obtaining food or groceries, 71 percent lost internet service, and 63 percent had difficulty obtaining bottled water.
  • When they lost electrical power and heat, 18 percent left their home, with 44 percent going to a local relative's home.
  • Of those who remained in their home without power, 26 percent used their gas oven or cooktop as a source of heat, 8 percent used a grill or smoker indoors, and 5 percent used an outdoor propane heater indoors.
  • Nearly half of Texans disapprove of Gov. Greg Abbott's performance during the winter storm, compared to 28 percent who approve.
  • More than half relied either a great deal, somewhat, or a little on three information sources before, during and after the storm hit: 68 percent on local TV news; 63 percent on neighbors and friends; and 55 percent on The Weather Channel.

The survey was fielded by YouGov from March 9 through March 19, with 1,500 YouGov respondents, resulting in a confidence interval of +/-2.5. Respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, ethnicity/race, and education, and are "representative of the adult population in these 213 Texas counties," per UH.

"Winter Storm Uri was a catastrophic weather event that impacted millions of lives across our state," said Kirk P. Watson, founding dean of the Hobby School, in a statement. "By digging deeper into its impact on Texans, we are learning critical information that will help inform future plans so a tragedy of this magnitude never happens again."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Richard Seline of Houston-based Resilience Innovation Hub joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how it's time for the world to see Houston as the resilient city it is. Photo courtesy of ResilientH20

Expert says Houston is the prime spot for creating and testing game-changing resilience solutions

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 72

The city of Houston, along the rest of the Lone Star State, has been hit from every direction — pandemics, hurricanes, winter storms, and more.

"We're just whipsawed," says Richard Seline, co-founder at the Houston-based Resilience Innovation Hub Collaboratory. "We've gone from back-to-back storms and hurricanes to COVID to snow and ice and its impact on energy. People are just exhausted."

Now, Seline says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, this exhaustion is festering into frustration and anger — and calling for change. The things that need to change, Seline says, includes growing investment and innovation in resilience solutions.

"As a fourth generation Houstonian, it's just so hard to see my hometown get hit persistently with a lot of these weather and other type of disasters," Seline says.

These unprecedented disasters — which are of course occurring beyond Houston and Texas — have also sparked a growing interest in change for insurance companies that have lost a trillion dollars on the United States Gulf Coast over the past seven years, Seline says. Something has got to change regarding preparation and damage mitigation.

Creating conversations about change is exactly what Seline and the Resilience Innovation Hub, which is based out of The Cannon Tower in downtown Houston, is focused on. Following all these catastrophic events, the industry is overwhelmed with data — and now is the time to put it to use on innovation and tech solutions.

"We are drowning in data and hungry for intelligence — actionable intelligence," Seline says, adding that now innovators and entrepreneurs are taking on this data and creating solutions.

The challenge then becomes convincing decision makers to pivot from what they know and are comfortable with to what they don't know and what they aren't comfortable with.

And, Seline says on the show, that needs to happen across the board — from public and private companies to government entities and nonprofits both locally and beyond.

"I think that it's time to flip this on its head and say to the world, 'we got it.,'" Seline says. "Because we know these challenges, we are opening the world to the best ideas to be piloted and demonstrated. All I ask is that we get elective and appointed officials who are open to ideas and solutions. That's how innovation occurs."

Listen to the full interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


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Houston company awarded $2.5B NASA contract to support astronaut health and space missions

space health

Houston-based technology and energy solution company KBR has been awarded a $2.5 billion NASA contract to support astronaut health and reduce risks during spaceflight missions.

Under the terms of the Human Health and Performance Contract 2, KBR will provide support services for several programs, including the Human Research Program, International Space Station Program, Commercial Crew Program, Artemis campaign and others. This will include ensuring crew health, safety, and performance; occupational health services and risk mitigation research for future flights.

“This contract reinforces KBR’s leadership in human spaceflight operations and highlights our expertise in supporting NASA’s vision for space exploration,” Mark Kavanaugh, KBR president of defense, intel and space, said in a news release.

The five-year contract will begin Nov. 1 with possible extension option periods that could last through 2035. The total estimated value of the base period plus the optional periods is $3.6 billion, and the majority of the work will be done at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“We’re proud to support NASA’s critical work on long-duration space travel, including the Artemis missions, while contributing to solutions that will help humans live and thrive beyond Earth,” Kavanaugh adde in the news release.

Recently, KBR and Axiom Space completed three successful crewed underwater tests of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at Johnson Space Center. The tests were part of an effort to help both companies work to support NASA's return to the Moon, according to a release.

KBR also landed at No. 3 in a list of Texas businesses on Time and Statista’s new ranking of the country’s best midsize companies.

UH receives $1M grant to advance research on rare pediatric disorder

peds research

The University of Houston has received a two-year, $1.1 million gift from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation to advance research on a rare genetic disorder that can lead to both deafness and blindness in children, known as Usher Syndrome.

The current grant will support the research of UH biomedical engineering professors Muna Naash and Muayyad Al-Ubaidi, who work in the Laboratory for Retinal Molecular and Cellular Biology and Gene Therapy in the Cullen College of Engineering. The professors have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Naash and Al-Ubaidi’s research focuses on mutations in the USH2A gene, which is crucial to the development and maintenance of the inner ear and retina. The work was inspired by a chance meeting that changed Naash’s life.

“Our work began more than two decades ago when I met a young boy who had lost his both his vision and hearing, and it made me realize just how precious those two senses are, and it truly touched my heart,” Naash said in a news release from UH. “Thanks to the generosity of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, we can now take the next critical steps in our research and bring hope to families affected by this challenging condition.”

The grant from the foundation comes in addition to a previous $1.6 million award from the National Eye Institute in 2023, which helped create a research platform for innovative gene therapy approaches for the condition.

Usher Syndrome affects 25,000 people in the U.S. and is the most common genetic condition worldwide that impacts both hearing and vision in children. Currently, there is no cure for any of the main three types of the condition. UH believes support from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation will help elevate research, advance real-world solutions in health and improve lives.

“What makes UH such a powerful hub for research is not just its own resources, but also its location and strategic partnerships, including those with the Texas Medical Center,” Al-Ubaidi said in a news release. “We have access to an extraordinary network, and that kind of collaborative environment is essential when tackling complex diseases like Usher syndrome, where no single lab can do it alone.”

Members-only coworking club Switchyards to open first Houston location

Where to Work

An innovative take on the coworking space is coming to Houston. Switchyards will open its first location in the Bayou City on Monday, September 29.

Located in the former Buffalo Exchange at 2901 S Shepherd Drive, Switchyards is well located on the border of Montrose, River Oaks, and Upper Kirby. Founded in Atlanta, the Houston location will join 30 outposts in cities such as Austin, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, and Nashville.

Unlike WeWork, which caters to companies looking for office space for groups of employees, Switchyards pitches itself as a club for individuals who want to get a little work done away from their home offices.

“Working from home all the time is pretty lonesome,” Switchyards creative director Brandon Hinman says. “It feels good to have places to get out and mix it up. To change paces and change scenery.”

Switchyards facilitates that change of scenery with an environment that blends touches of hotel lobbies, college libraries, and coffee shops. As seen in the photos of the company’s other location, the furniture is a mix of desks, comfy chairs, and couches for individuals or small groups. It’s a far cry from the cube farms of the Office Space era.

“They tend to be historic, textured, layered,” Hinman says about the company’s locations. “A lot of really good furniture. Really thoughtful for getting a couple hours of work done.”

Each location features fast wi-fi, plenty of electrical outlets, and good quality coffee and tea. All 250 members have 24/7 access to the space. And by choosing the real estate they lease carefully, Switchyards keeps its membership price to $100 per month.

“Packaging it together like that and opening in these neighborhoods where people actually live has been pretty magical,” Hinman says. "The big opportunity, I think, is that 90 percent of our members have never had a shared space before. It is unlocking a new thing for people.”

Those who are interested in learning more can sign up at switchyards.com/houston-tx to get early access to memberships and an invite to a sneak peek party.

Memberships go on sale Thursday, September 25 at 10 am. Switchyards notes that the last 14 clubs have sold out on day one.

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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