Thread by @douglewinenergy

Unfortunately, this tweet from last night turned out to be true. 250,000 accounts (probably ~600,000 Texans) are without power right now. About half of those are in Austin/Travis County. Tree limbs are falling all over the place in my South Austin neighborhood. #txenergy #wxtx 1/

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1620584732156383232

Check on vulnerable friends, family & neighbors. Also, close blinds & curtains, put towels or blankets (makeshift insulation) wherever you feel cold air coming in, and then heat your home a few degrees warmer than normal. That way if you lose power, you'll stay warmer longer. 2/

I wouldn't normally advise that but, with temps in the 20s or 30s and little need for secondary resistance heat, demand is fairly low in ERCOT (62GW now compared to 74GW on Dec. 23) so a little extra warming of homes this morning won't cause problems. #txenergy 3/

Looks like large portions of the state will continue to get ice accumulation and outages could get worse over the next 24 hours so it's best to pre-heat, cover these leaks, charge up devices, and be prepared. #txlege #wxtx 4/

If your power's out for an extended period and *if* your utility doesn't think they can restore power, you can find warming centers posted by @TDEM here. Be careful as the risk of driving is likely higher than waiting for power to come back. #wxtx
tdem.texas.gov/warm

Extreme weather is with us to stay, folks. Time to get serious about weatherizing infrastructure including our homes and buildings, and getting more distributed energy resources (DER) onto the distribution grid.

@PUCTX has a good *start* with a DER pilot.
#txlege 6/

Finally, huge appreciation and gratitude for line workers working in extremely dangerous conditions to restore power to those who have lost it.

Thank you!
#txlege #txenergy #energytwitter 7/end