Texas Ready for Cold Weather After Inspecting 302 Power Plants
- Winterization inspections also done on transmission stations
- State had devastating blackouts last winter when plants failed
A neighborhood in Waco, Texas, covered in ice and snow on Feb 18.
Photographer: Matthew Busch/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Texas power plants have made the necessary upgrades to protect against cold weather to avoid a repeat of the devastating blackouts caused by last February’s cold snap, according to the state’s grid operator.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas inspected 302 generating units, which represented 85% of the supply lost to outages during last winter’s storm, and 22 transmission stations, the grid operator said Thursday in a statement. Ercot will perform follow-up inspections on 16 facilities that hadn’t made all the changes needed for the mandatory winterization requirements.