As the storm hit, electric demand soared and many power plants suffered outages. Texas' grid operator, ERCOT, initiated load shedding to preserve the grid from complete collapse. Although these were called rolling outages, the normal response to tight grid conditions, the reality is that the forced generation outages were so severe that operators had shut off power for many customers for 24 hours or more. As critical infrastructure like hospitals are often in wealthier communities, it appears many poor and minority areas suffered a disproportionate share of the outages.

For much of the crisis, load shed was around 15-20 GW, roughly the average electricity demand for New England. Nationally, the storm led to a loss of power for more than 4.5 million customers, the vast majority of them in Texas.

As many households do not have sufficient insulation, millions of people have suffered near freezing, life-threatening indoor conditions. With many roads impassable and what few heating centers that existed presenting COVID-19 exposure risks, most were forced to wait it out. Cases of hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning rose rapidly with people using desperate methods to heat themselves. This was made considerably worse by impacts to the water system. As the water system relies on electricity to be delivered, it was severely impacted. This was further compounded by frozen and broken pipes.

Power plants in particular failed to perform at the level expected by grid planners. Both electric demand and forced outages greatly exceeded ERCOT's pre-winter resource assessment. Almost 30 GW of natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators (roughly half of what was expected to be online) were already on outage or suffered from a forced outage. Natural gas is the primary electricity source in the state, and was expected to provide as much as two thirds of electric capacity in such conditions. As much as 40% of natural gas capacity was not available.

While the precise reasons are yet to be revealed, these outages are likely due to a mix of plant-level issues and gas pipeline delivery issues. The interdependence between the gas and power sectors has been clearly illuminated. Frozen oil and gas wells cut production and there may be insufficient pipeline capacity. In one of the oil and gas capitals of the world, power plants could not get natural gas to operate. Even one of the state's four nuclear reactors, usually most resilient to weather-related disruptions, suffered an outage due to a sensor issue. Meanwhile, some wind turbines suffered from icing, with renewable energy capacity -- compared to grid planning criteria -- either overperforming or underperforming depending on the day.