February 2021 was the worst week in the history of the Texas grid. Five years on, here’s what got fixed, what’s still vulnerable, and how to prepare for the next one.
It’s been five years since Winter Storm Uri, and most of us who lived through it remember exactly where we were. The arctic event of February 2021 left millions of Texans without power for days, killed hundreds, and inflicted billions of dollars of damage. It also exposed weaknesses in the Texas electric system that had been building for decades.
Out of that disaster came the most significant overhaul of Texas electricity policy in a generation. With another winter season eventually coming around again, it’s worth taking an honest look at what changed, what didn’t, and what every Texas household and business should be doing to prepare.
What Got Fixed
Weatherization became mandatory. Before Uri, weatherizing power plants and natural gas infrastructure for cold weather was largely voluntary. Now it’s required by law, with annual inspections, formal preparedness declarations, and real penalties for non-compliance. The Public Utility Commission and the Railroad Commission both got new authority to enforce these standards.
The natural gas supply chain got more attention. A significant portion of the Uri power outages traced back to frozen wellheads, processing facilities, and gas compression equipment that left power plants without fuel. Coordination between the gas and electric sectors has improved substantially, though it remains a continuing area of focus.
ERCOT changed how it operates. The grid operator now runs more conservatively, holding more reserves earlier, being faster to issue advisories, and committing additional generation when conditions look risky. A new ancillary service called ECRS — designed to address the variability that comes with growing renewable resources — was added to the toolkit.
Communication got better. ERCOT created TXANS, the Texas Advisory and Notification System, which sends out clear and timely information about grid conditions. Anyone can sign up. It’s free.
The legislature passed major reforms. Multiple legislative sessions since Uri have added new statutory tools for the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT, including the SB 6 framework for managing large loads that we covered earlier in this series.
What’s Still Vulnerable
Let’s be honest. The Texas grid is meaningfully stronger than it was in February 2021. It is not invincible.
Extreme cold remains the highest-risk weather for the grid. Hot summers stress the system in predictable ways. Extreme cold is harder. Heating demand can spike dramatically, fuel supply chains become brittle, solar contribution is essentially zero, and wind output during severe cold snaps can be unreliable. A storm worse than Uri — and weather scientists say such storms are possible — would test the system in ways the post-Uri reforms have not yet been fully tested against.
Load growth is outpacing generation additions. This is the central reliability story of the next several years. Even with all the reforms in place, the system has less margin in absolute reserve terms than it had before 2021, because demand is growing faster than new generation is coming online.
The retail market structure remains complicated for some customers. During Uri, some indexed-price customers received bills in the tens of thousands of dollars for a single week of power. Reforms have addressed many of those structural issues, but customers on certain pass-through products can still see extreme exposure during emergency events. If you’re not 100 percent sure what kind of plan you have, find out.
The Texas grid is meaningfully stronger than it was in February 2021. The families and businesses that handle the next severe winter best are the ones who prepare for it before the forecast comes out.
What Every Texas Household Should Do
Five steps that take an afternoon and could save you significant trouble:
- Sign up for TXANS alerts. Free, immediate, accurate. There’s no reason every household in Texas shouldn’t have these notifications going to a phone in the family.
- Have a winter readiness check on your home. Insulate exposed pipes, especially those in attics, garages, and exterior walls. Know where the main water shutoff is, in case a pipe does freeze and burst. Have heat tape on the most exposed pipes if you’re in a particularly drafty house.
- Stock the basics. Bottled water, non-perishable food, blankets, flashlights, batteries. A camping stove or other off-grid cooking option. If anyone in the household depends on medical equipment, know what your backup plan is.
- Know your contract. Look specifically for any language about pass-through charges, ancillary cost adjustments, or capacity scarcity adders. If your contract doesn’t fully shield you from extreme price events, consider whether the next contract should.
- Have a check-in plan for vulnerable family members. Older relatives, people with health conditions, anyone living alone. Knowing who’s checking on whom before the storm arrives is much easier than figuring it out during a power outage.
For Small Business Owners
The same principles, with extra weight on the contract review and operational planning. A few questions to think through:
- What does your business do during an outage? Restaurants with refrigerated inventory, offices with critical computer systems, churches with scheduled services — every operation has different vulnerabilities. Walk through it once before you need to.
- Is backup power worth it for your operation? For some businesses the math is obvious. For others it’s a real question. Either way, make the decision deliberately rather than discovering you needed it during the next event.
- Talk to your retail provider before October. Confirm what your hedging looks like for the upcoming winter, what kind of price exposure you’d face during an emergency event, and whether there are contract amendments worth considering before the cold arrives.
Five years on, the Texas grid is in a fundamentally better place than it was. We’ve made hard decisions and spent real money to get here. None of that means we can stop paying attention. The next severe winter is coming. Whether it’s this year, three years from now, or five — the families and businesses that prepared in advance will fare best.
— Lee Miller
Lee Miller publishes Texas Forest Country Living and is co-founder of Amerigy Energy, a Texas-based electricity brokerage.
