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Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

"There have been 263 power outages across Texas since 2019, more than any other state, each lasting an average of 160 minutes and impacting an estimated average of 172,000 Texans, according to an analysis by electricity retailer Payless Power (https://paylesspower.com/blog/blackout-tracker/)"

Also in 2021 210 people died. This is a huge deal. This wasn't just a little outage.

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That website shows California as currently worse. It looks like Larger states just have more power outages, which is to be expected. Texas also is a weird state that is very large it gets Tornadoes, extreme heat, and hurricanes, while also having several very large metro areas in it. There also isn't anything indicated differences in grid monitoring, are all grids (like large rural grids) monitored to the same levels?

California has power outages as a matter of routine in some places. When I went there the rural areas were constantly experiencing load-shedding power outages and some of the rural lodging advertised that they had backup generators because this is so routine there.

also selective exurban areas, for fire prevention, might be skewing the numbers. our datacenters in the city don't get these outages.

We also have a lot more growth in the past few years than most other places, both in relative terms, and in absolute (big state + high growth introduces more absolute friction than small state). Demand is forecast to rise over 20% from 2024 levels vs. an American average under 5%: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2025.07.31/main.svg

We have high power demand in both winter and summer: in the latter, air conditioners use a lot; in the former, about half of Texans heat with electricity because we have less cold and so less usage of cost-effective, grid-preserving furnaces.

Texas has been building a ton of wind and solar to supplement generation capacity and is taking some leadership in the next-gen nuclear stuff for a reliable base load, but in the mean time the shortage of CCGTs is going to bite in a state where demand goes up this much, this fast. SB6 passed this summer also should help with reasonable control and oversight.

90% of the Texas grid is independent from the rest of the country

What you talked about is not a Texas grid problem, but a local problem. The Texas grid itself is very reliable.

> Also in 2021 210 people died. This is a huge deal. This wasn't just a little outage.

Yes, a rare storm knocked out power and people died. It is a big deal and a lot of things changed after the event.

But I want to put it into perspective. In 2024, ~62,800 people in Europe died to heat-related events.

Yeah, but that isn't really an apples to apples comparison. Texas for example had ~400 heat deaths in 2024 depending on where you look but in 2023 it was 334 or 563 depending on your criteria [1].

>But I want to put it into perspective. In 2024, ~62,800 people in Europe died to heat-related events.

Most of these deaths are not because of electrification but the fact that homes are built out of bricks and mortar and become ovens with heat waves that get hotter each year and ~10% to ~20% [2] of homes in Europe have air conditioning meanwhile ~95% [3] of homes have air conditioning. Your apples to oranges comparison mostly shows how Europe is generically unprepared for climate adaption (specifically heat resilience) and has nothing to do with electrification stability.

[1] https://www.texasenvironment.org/news-room/heat-related-deat... [2] It's all over the place some places like UK are around 5% adoption while southern Europe can be close to as much as 95% adoption. [3] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/state/...

It's a perfect apples-to-apples comparison if you level accusations of grid incompetence at Texas. Should all those EU homes suddenly go out and buy AC, EU power grids would have to enact massive load shedding during heat waves. Such waves already push demand up, causing local blackouts and price spikes: https://www.ft.com/content/23b3dc59-b40f-48e2-ad93-e301de7ac...

The vast majority of these 400 heat deaths have nothing to do with the power grid. They are people living outdoors, roofers, elderly, etc. When the temps hit 105+ for long periods there are bound to be people who don't have access to AC or overexert themselves outdoors.

Texas has installed a vast number of solar and battery backup systems since 2019. And it will be a few years, but is going HEAVILY into nuclear (and for the next 3.5, is going to get auto-approval to actually build them. ERCOT is changing fast, don't rehash stale narratives.

Also wind, more than 40GW installed capacity, leading the USA and ahead of many other countries.

Only as long as the Texas politicians don't sabotage wind. Texas businesses make lots of money on wind, but the legislature and governor absolutely hate it.

Having experienced the Snowpocalypse and mini Snowpocalypse, weeks of 2019 PG&E PSPSes, and the 2000–2001 CALISO-Enron rolling blackouts, it's ridiculous for those in glass houses to throw stones.

Improper deregulation never ends well.

So about one every 9 days that affects 0.55% of the population. So in a 3 year window a Texan has about a 50% chance of losing power for 2.5 hours. Seems pretty good to me.

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