I’ve seen lots of posts lately on Texas being “minutes and seconds away” from months long blackouts. What could’ve happened, what was avoided that caused that?
In: Engineering
From the [Houston Chronicle](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/):
>”As natural gas fired plants, utility scale wind power and coal plants [tripped offline due to the extreme cold brought](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/) by the winter storm, the amount of power supplied to the grid to be distributed across the state fell rapidly. At the same time, demand was increasing as consumers and businesses turned up the heat and stayed inside to avoid the weather.
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> …
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>The worst case scenario: Demand for power outstrips the supply of power generation available on the grid, causing equipment to catch fire, substations to blow and power lines to go down.
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>If the grid had gone totally offline, the physical damage to power infrastructure from overwhelming the grid could have taken months to repair, said Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewables at Enverus, an oil and gas software and information company headquartered in Austin.
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