February 2021: an Arctic cold front hit Texas while gas plants froze. Press play to watch generation collapse — and see how different grid configurations would have handled it.
In February 2021, an Arctic cold front pushed temperatures across Texas below 0°F for days. Demand for heating surged past 75 GW while generators froze. Gas wellheads iced over. Compressor stations lost power. Coal piles froze solid. Wind turbines iced. At the peak, ERCOT lost over 48 GW of generation capacity — more than half the grid. Rolling blackouts lasted four days. Over 200 people died.
The simulation below replays a modeled version of that week across eight different grid configurations: the 2024 baseline with and without gas shock, and several renewable-heavy futures with and without data center load. Press play to watch it unfold.