re: #7 Shiplord Kirel: Fan of USPS, Goodyear, and Oreo

From last string:

re: #410 O say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave..

The winterization package for windmills is a standard option and, iirc, not particularly expensive. The operators could, and probably did, predict that temperatures in this range would occur at some point during the life of the installation (these temps are not THAT unusual and were commonplace in the mid 20th century). In the ERCOT de-regulated dog-eat-dog world of Texas electric production, operators cannot spend a dime that does not immediately affect the bottom line and regulatory requirements, which this would be, are few and far between. Incidentally, Lubbock is not part of the lepertarian ERCOT system and its windmills are winterized. They have had some blackouts today, but only for a few minutes and primarily because they cannot get power from ERCOT affiliated neighboring grids.

Blackouts across Texas didn’t get as bad as they were because of wind power systems going offline.

Nope. It’s what happened when 40% of fossil fuel plant generating capacity went offline due to the weather.