Today's power outages in Texas aren't the weather-related outages you're used to, when old power lines go down and crews can't get them fixed.

This is a supply problem. Too few generators, too many people trying to keep warm.
1/6
If your power supply and demand are out of balance, the grid frequency will deviate from 60 Hz frequency and collapse. So the grid operator orders controlled rotating outages rather than have the whole system knocked out, like the Northeast blackout in 2003.
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But why is this happening now? Why can't Texas find the power it needs? A few reasons.

Texas decided to isolate its grid from the rest of the US to prevent federal oversight. Fair enough--but that means it can't import more energy from other areas. It's on its own.
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In most areas, your power company is required to have contracts with power plants to cover its highest usage, even when some gen is unavailable. Generally that means about 15% more electricity capacity than peak use. That way the system still works if a plant or two go down. 4/6
Generators get paid to be available. Some generators are only used a few hours/year, and so these payments make them economically viable.

In Texas, they don't. Instead they allow generators to charge up to $9/kilowatt-hour. (Your electric bill is prob around $0.12 /kwh).
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Why not require power companies to have reserve contracts? Good question. Possibly this is an ideology issue: a disinclination to regulate power companies or an over-reliance on the invisible hand.

In any case, we've seen this coming. There's no excuse. Do better, Texas.
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