Plunging temperatures in Texas caused several power plants to go offline in rapid succession Sunday, shortly before midnight. This triggered an emergency on the Texas power grid and led about two million homes to lose electricity.
The unusual cold is expected to stick around until at least Tuesday. This means it could take a while to get the grid back to normal operations.
What is happening in Texas?
Texas is in the grip of an unusual Arctic blast from the tip of the Panhandle all the way to the Rio Grande Valley. Residents of the capital, Austin, woke to single-digit temperatures on Monday morning.
These freezing temperatures had led to record-breaking demand for electricity during winter months. On Sunday night into Monday morning, these conditions hobbled dozens of power plants. This led the state’s grid operator to declare its most serious state of emergency at about 1 a.m. Monday.
The grid operators required local utilities to begin shutting off customers overnight, leading to millions of people waking up without electricity on the coldest day in memory.
Source: WSJ – US News
