The February 2021 U.S. Southwest power crisis

A major blackout occurred in the U.S. Texas during a week of unseasonably cold weather starting from February 13, 2021. Despite advanced knowledge of the extreme weather, there was limited mitigation available to minimize the extent of disruptions. The events resulted in a forced reduction of consumption (e.g., rolling blackouts and equipment failures) during a time when electrical energy was already in high demand due to the cold weather. When primary generation systems started to fail from freezing conditions (48.6% loss of normal generation at its peak), the utility operators were forced to progressively issue rolling blackouts to maintain system frequency and avoid a complete blackout. While Texas avoided a complete grid collapse, 4.5 million customer premises were blacked out with economic losses estimated to be at least $130 billion and many lives lost. The cold weather affected the neighboring state of Oklahoma, however, the disruptions to electricity were mild when compared with Texas. This paper documents some of the key contributing factors in this event for the U.S. Southwest region based on factual data available to date. Wider electric energy reliability issues beyond the affected area are also highlighted. •Impact of Winter storm 2021 on the electrical power systems in Texas and Oklahoma.•Generation failure exacerbated by interdependence of electricity on natural gas.•Unique organizational factors and grid architectures yielded different outcomes.