Cold temperatures are coming to Houston. How will the ERCOT grid hold up?

Next week is also expected to be significantly warmer than the February 2021 freeze, which caused at least 200 deaths and led ERCOT to initiate widespread outages to prevent a total collapse of the grid.

During the winter, much of ERCOT’s outage risk hinges on how cold Houston gets, according to Beth Garza, formerly the director of ERCOT’s independent watchdog organization.

“ERCOT will be fine when it freezes in Dallas,” Garza said. “ERCOT gets nervous if it’s a hard freeze in Houston,” which she defined as multiple days of below-freezing temperatures during the day for at least eight to 12 hours.