To Increase Reliability, Texas Needs a Genius Grid

For a decade, including during the most recent legislative session, state leaders in Texas have mostly ignored the potential to reduce energy demand through energy efficiency and demand response. That negligence had massive consequences in February, when a winter storm led to outages in much of the state and hundreds of Texans died.

There were many reasons for the outages; a key one was a record high demand for electricity driven not only by extreme cold but also by inefficient heating and air conditioning systems in poorly insulated buildings.

By focusing more on strategies that use advanced technologies to reduce demand when supplies get tight, Texas can avoid future disasters and strengthen the grid in ways that are better for consumers and the economy…