relies more on wind and solar power, known as 'intermittent' sources, because they are subject to the whims of the weather and do not produce electricity 24 hours a day.Įlectric grid regulators said the U.S. The challenge is likely to grow deeper as the U.S.

electric infrastructure may not be fully prepared to absorb steep climate-related spikes in demand for power. Still, the Texas crisis is a wake-up call that exposes how the U.S. Wind and solar, still fairly small slices of the state's energy mix, played only a minimal role in the sudden power shortage, utility officials said - contrary to a wave of conservative critics who tried to falsely pin blame for the situation on renewable energy. In Texas, the center of a wave of outages across the Southern and central parts of the U.S., the primary electric grid suffered a one-two punch wrought by the deep freeze: off-the-charts demand for power as Texans tried to heat their homes and power plants that simply failed to produce power when people needed it the most.