Heather is not Uri (TX Energy & Power)

For those of you that keep up with ERCOT and it's impacts on Houston loosely, you may not be familiar with Doug Lewin of Texas Energy & Power newsletter. Doug is a leading critic on Texas energy policy. Think of him as SpaceCityWeather but for the electric grid. Maybe a bit more sensational than Berger/Lanza.

Anyway, he had an updated post on the grid during this freeze. Key takeaways for Houston:

• ERCOT is really bad at forecasting demand during these type of cold snaps. Today, like winter storm Elliot were way off. The ERCOT dashboards showing shortages tomorrow also look to repeat.

• Lack of ice and snow is making it less likely for transmission failures.

• The lack of transmission lines moving power from south Texas wind farms to everywhere else in the state is costing Houstonians money. Cheap wind is down there not making it to our houses.

• Batteries on the grid are being added like crazy. It's adding a ton of reliability to our areas.

• Overall, there's been very little unplanned generation outages so far (compared to normal). That could be from better winterization, not as bad of temps, or speaking too early.

I highly recommend Doug's newsletter if you're interested in our grid.