Another Winter Storm Bears Down on Texas | Reading and Podcast Picks — Jan. 23, 2026
2026 is unlikely to be as devastating as 2021, but Texas could still face serious challenges; more community power (i.e. DERs) would help; and Texas renewables played a crucial role last year.
Reading and Podcast Picks is a collection of what we’ve been reading and listening to over the last week or so about energy topics.
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What Texans should know about power outages ahead of the weekend freeze | Houston Chronicle
Texas is bracing for the first brutal winter storm of 2026. This weekend will see temperatures plunge well below freezing across most of the state. The storm is unlikely to be as devastating as Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which froze power plants, gas infrastructure, and other generation resources, triggering blackouts across Texas. Uri pushed temperatures lower and lasted longer than this year’s storm is expected to. Further, the infusion of batteries on the ERCOT grid will make a huge difference — the state now has 17,000 megawatts of battery capacity on the grid, compared to 220 megawatts five years ago.
Key trends to watch this weekend include:
Electricity supply and demand, which you can find on ERCOT’s dashboard site (as of Friday, ERCOT projected having at least seven more gigawatts than Texans will need);
Power plant outages, which you can find at GridStatus.io (more than 9 gigawatts of gas and coal plants were out of service on Friday, down from nearly 12 GW earlier in the week);
