As another Arctic blast gripped Texas this winter, a familiar narrative resurfaced: wind turbines and solar farms supposedly went dark just as demand spiked, leaving natural gas and coal to rescue the grid. The claim, amplified by a new report and conservative commentators, taps into lingering anger from the 2021 blackouts and a broader fight over the state’s energy future. I set out to unpack what actually happened on the system, and how much credit or blame any single fuel really deserves.
The data show a more complicated picture than a simple renewables-versus-fossil duel. Gas and coal plants did ramp up sharply during Winter Storm Fern, but they did so inside a grid that has been reshaped by billions of dollars in new wind and solar, tougher weather rules, and emergency tools that did not exist five years ago. Understanding that mix matters far more than scoring points for one technology or another.
What the new report claims about Texas wind and solar
The latest flashpoint is a Report circulating online that declares Texas wind and solar “failed” during this week’s cold snap. The analysis, shared through Texas-focused outlets, argues that output from turbines and panels sagged just as demand surged, forcing natural gas and coal plants to shoulder the load. It frames the episode as proof that intermittent renewables cannot be trusted in extreme weather and that only fossil fuel plants provide real “firm” capacity when lives are on the line.
A related version of the same Report from The Western Journal goes further, tying the alleged renewable shortfall to what it calls a “lack of surplus electricity” on the Texas grid. It suggests that state policy has leaned too heavily on wind and solar at the expense of dispatchable plants, leaving the system exposed when the sun is low, the wind is weak and temperatures plunge. The framing is stark: either Texas doubles down on gas and coal or it risks repeating the deadly outages of the past.
How Winter Storm Fern actually stressed the grid
To understand how fair that charge is, it helps to look at what grid operators say happened during Winter Storm Fern. In its own winter updates, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has highlighted how its winter operations now rely on a mix of weatherized plants, demand response and new reserve products to ride out cold snaps. During Fern, those tools were tested as temperatures fell, demand climbed and some generators struggled with icing and fuel constraints. The system stayed online, but only with tight operating margins at several points.
Independent analysis of Winter Storm Fern shows that Coal and natural gas generation did in fact increase sharply, offsetting declines in wind, solar and hydro in parts of the country. That pattern held in Texas as well, where wind output dipped from earlier in the week and solar was limited by short winter days and cloud cover. At the same time, ERCOT’s own Post Winter Storm, summarized in an Assisted Summary and Summary of Key Points, credits new real time energy and reserve optimization tools with helping operators juggle those swings in output.
ERCOT’s emergency playbook: gas, coal and more
Behind the scenes, ERCOT leaned on more than just big central plants. During the storm, the grid operator Leaned on Mobile Gens and at least one RMR Unit During Storm, tapping contracted backup units that can be called into service when reliability is at risk. A related account notes that ERCOT Leaned on Mobile Gens, RMR Unit During Storm as part of a broader strategy that also includes new firm fuel rules approved by the Texas PUC to avoid a repeat of 2021’s disastrous Winter Storm Uri. Those steps underscore how much the system now depends on contingency resources, not just the day to day energy market.
State regulators and experts say weatherization has also changed the equation. Economist Ed Hirs has argued that “The weatherization requirements seem to have helped,” referring to a program adopted by Texas officials following the last major freeze. At the same time, he has warned that tight conditions during the latest blast indicate that problems remain in Texas, including fuel supply risks and the lack of large scale storage. In other words, gas and coal did carry a heavy share of the load, but they did so inside a system that has been propped up by new rules and emergency tools, not by fossil fuel capacity alone.
Lessons from 2021: blaming wind alone does not match the data
The rhetoric around Fern echoes the blame game that followed the catastrophic outages during Winter Storm Uri. Back then, some politicians and commentators quickly pointed to frozen turbines as the main culprit. Subsequent investigations painted a different picture. One detailed review found that, in reality, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as frozen wind and solar units. That finding undercut the idea that renewables were uniquely to blame and highlighted how vulnerable gas infrastructure was to freezing wells and pipelines.
Energy analyst Doug Walsh summed it up at the time by noting that the Texas grid is “a mix” and that it is hard to pin down a single villain at any given moment. Academic work has backed that up. One study of the 2021 freeze found that, In February of 2021, in Texas ( Texas – State ), a deep freeze across the state resulted in equipment failure at many coal and natural gas plants, forcing grid operators to cut power to millions to ensure grid stability. Another legal analysis put it bluntly: “But what goes around comes around. This week the Texas’ grid failed in the face of an extended system wide cold snap that froze power plants and gas supply, and most of the missing generation was natural gas fired,” as one But Texas commentary noted.
Why renewables sag in extreme cold, and why that is not the whole story
None of this means wind and solar are blameless or that their limitations can be waved away. Grid planners have long known that, However, during peak or extreme conditions, wind and solar often underperform due to weather or diurnal constraints, with wind output sometimes dropping sharply during calm cold snaps and solar generation becoming negligible at night or during cloudy winters, as one However analysis put it. Scientists have also observed a growing mismatch between energy demand cycles and supply stability, noting that on sunny, windy weekends, the country can generate so much electricity from renewables that wholesale prices briefly go negative, only to see shortfalls emerge in the evening when demand is still high but the sun is already dropping behind rooftops, according to one mismatch study.
Those structural challenges are not unique to Texas, but they are magnified in a state that relies heavily on electric heating and has limited interconnections to neighboring grids. Winter Storm Uri is a notable example of extreme weather posing a national security risk, and On February 14, 2021, Uri swept through the central United States, crippling power plants and gas infrastructure and leaving millions without heat in Texas as the state’s isolated grid struggled to import power or share reserves, as one Winter Storm Uri analysis noted. That experience has fueled calls for more transmission, storage and flexible demand, not just more of any one fuel.
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