While the electric power generation issues faced by Texans during the week of February 14, 2021 were largely brought on by weather-related mechanical failures, the roots of the problem can be traced back to failures to understand and resolve preparedness gaps. Many of those gaps were known well in advance and it can be argued that lessons from previous, similar conditions went unlearned.
Although the outages on the stand-alone portion of the Texas grid were weather-related, they shine a light on the fragility of all power grids and their vulnerability to a wide range of hazards, threats and circumstances that fall outside of their established operating parameters.
This presentation provides a high-level briefing on the near collapse of the Texas grid and a look at some of the lessons learned that are applicable to a wider set of threats.