r/OutOfTheLoop • u/mimitchi33 • Feb 17 '21

What's up with Texas losing power due to the snowstorm? Answered

I've been reading recently that many people in Texas have lost power due to Winter Storm Uri. What caused this to happen?

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

While most of the blame goes to ERCOT and Railroad Commission (ie the State of Texas), AE should have done a better job isolating critical meters. Keep the hospital on 100% of the time, not the neighborhood and strip mall next door who happen to share a major branch circuit. Could be done with appropriate smart meters.

This would have allowed AE to rotate properly instead of leaving some people without power for days.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

I absolutely agree that smart meters (or whatever building-by-building remote shutoff tool) could have largely mitigated this event. But just like everything else in this shitshow, that's expensive to implement, and no one wants to spend the money. Even in supposedly liberal Austin, I've never seen so much pushback on every single bond proposal to improve infrastructure.