On April 6, 2021, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) sent its preliminary report to the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) on the causes of generator outages and derates during the February 14-19, 2021 extreme cold weather event.[1] ERCOT’s report follows initial requests for information from generators about why so much generation went offline during the cold weather event. The report found that most of the outages during the event were weather-related outages, which ERCOT defined as outages “explicitly attributed to cold weather,” such as frozen or flooded equipment. During the February 14-19 time period, weather-related issues caused 54% of generator outages, equipment failures caused 14% of outages, and fuel limitations caused 12% of outages. ERCOT estimates that approximately 51,173 MW were forced offline during that period, which is slightly lower than the original estimate of 52,277 MW. ERCOT is still waiting on data for February 10-13, 2021. The grid operator anticipates completing a full report on the event by the end of August 2021.

[1]http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/lists/226521/51878_ERCOT_Letter_re_Preliminary_Report_on_Outage_Causes.pdf