This report1 describes the severe cold weather event occurring between February 8 and 20, 2021 and how it impacted the reliability of the bulk electric system2 (“BES” or colloquially known as the grid)
in Texas and the South Central United States (hereafter known as “the Event”). During the Event, extreme cold temperatures and freezing precipitation led 1,045 individual BES generating units, (with a combined 192,818 MW of nameplate capacity) in Texas and the South Central United States to experience 4,124 outages, derates or failures to start. Each individual generating unit could, and in many cases, did, have multiple outages from the same or different causes. To provide perspective on how significant the generating unit outages were, including generation already on planned or unplanned outages, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) averaged 34,000 MW of generation unavailable (based on expected capacity) for over two consecutive days, from 7:00 a.m. February 15 to 1:00 p.m. February 17, equivalent to nearly half of its all-time winter peak electric load of 69,871 MW.
