Yesterday, January 21, ERCOT issued its first Winter Weather Watch for the upcoming winter storm, which is expected to begin affecting the Lone Star State with sleet, ice, and frigid temperatures starting Saturday, January 24, 2026. While such weather events are becoming more frequent in the country, the confluence of record-high load forecasts and a sharp projected drop in renewable output has placed the ERCOT power grid on high alert.

Over the past week, ERCOT’s average daily electricity demand has remained relatively stable, hovering between 50 and 55 gigawatts (GW). However, the incoming storm is expected to trigger a massive spike in demand for electric and natural gas heating. By Monday, January 26, ERCOT forecasts average daily power demand to soar above 70 GW, a nearly 40% increase in load over a 72-hour window.

Compounding the power demand surge is a significant projected drop in renewable generation. Almost half of Texas’s solar infrastructure is concentrated between Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area—regions forecasted to take the brunt of the sleet and icing during the early parts of the storm. As a result, ERCOT forecasts average daily solar generation to plummet from a recent average of 6.8 GW over the past seven days to less than 1 GW on January 24th. Similarly, wind generation is projected to drop from a weekly average of 14.3 GW to just 7.1 GW by January 24th.

With renewables sidelined by the weather, the burden falls almost entirely on the thermal fleet. As shown in the forecast, dispatchable generation (natural gas and coal) will be required to provide a staggering 51 GW on Sunday, January 25, to keep the lights on.

The central question for the Texas grid this weekend is whether the fossil fuel fleet can deliver. While ERCOT has roughly 55 GW of natural gas and 13.5 GW of coal capacity on paper, historical performance during extreme freezes tells a different story. Frozen equipment, fuel delivery issues, and iced coal stockpiles have historically sidelined some portions of natural gas and coal-fired power plants. As a result, only a portion of the currently installed natural gas and coal capacity can be counted on to be available during the upcoming storm. On average, about 79% of coal capacity and 72% of natural gas capacity were available and generated electricity during the last four major winter storms impacting the Texas power grid.

If we apply these historical capacity factors to the current fleet, the margin for error disappears. Our analysis shows that if the thermal fleet performs at levels seen during the 2025 Polar Vortex or Winter Storm Uri (2021), the grid will likely face a generation shortfall to meet the expected maximum fossil-fuel generation need on January 25th.

As illustrated above, a repeat of 2025 performance levels would yield only 46.2 GW of fossil generation—well short of the 50.9 GW “Max Fossil Needed” benchmark. Even an “average” performance across the last four storms barely meets the requirement.

Due to the greater number of natural gas-fired power plants in Texas, their capacity factor during the upcoming winter storm will be critical for ERCOT to meet the expected electricity demand. Given the high demand forecast and the lack of renewable support, any significant operational failures in the gas supply chain could lead to a supply deficit. As a result, we are placing the ERCOT power grid on high alert from January 24 through January 27 and will continue to monitor load adjustments and generation outages as the storm and subsequent freeze progress.