Benji Jones, INSIDER
May 19, 2021
This article discusses the underlying reasons for the Texas Blackout in February 2021.
On Wednesday, February 17, 2021, almost 3 million Texas were without power, including a quarter of all homes in Dallas, and 1.4 million homes in the Houston metropolitan area. This has resulted in the largest forced blackout in U.S. history, according to the Times Magazine.
During this time the winter storm Uri brought unexpectedly cold weather as the temperatures plummeted to an average of 11.8 degrees across the State while many people stranded in the cold without electricity and heat. There was a massive drop in the supply, as many homes turned up the heaters to keep warm during the storm which increased the demand, while the sources of electricity went offline as they weren’t prepared for the freezing weather.
Almost 60% of the supply that went offline were from coal and natural gas which are non-renewable sources of energy, the rest came from solar and wind farms. Household owners weren’t instructed to conserve electricity. Another underlying factor that played a role was extreme weather conditions which were made worse by climate change due to the emission of CO2, fuelled by burning coal and natural gas. Combating climate change requires a social effort and an individual responsibility towards conserving energy and reducing our carbon footprint.
ENPOSS was born out of this mission to save our planet by creating our FORCE system that contributes towards the protection of the environment, by efficiently and effectively saving electric energy. Let's join our hands together and work for a better tomorrow!