you're right - I still encounter numerous people blaming the grid failure on renewables that I read it into your reply.

Though my snow & ice covered solar panels and PowerWall kept my house running.

Electrical generation failures were widespread such as Texas natural gas production dropped in half

A large portion of the decrease in natural gas production was from declines in Texas, which fell over 10 Bcf/d during the February 8–17 period

The South Texas Nuclear Power Station, about 60 miles southwest of me, lost half it's output

One of two reactors shut down at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station an hour southwest of Houston, knocking out about half of its 2,700 megawatts of generating capacity.

Also part of the natural gas failures were self induced A giant flaw in Texas blackouts: It cut power to gas supplies

Producers who depend on electricity to power their operations were left with no way to pump natural gas. And that gas was needed more than ever to generate electricity.

And despite some frozen turbines, wind was generating more than expected at the start of the outage:

Power supplied by wind (green) is coming in ahead of forecasts. ... An ERCOT director told Bloomberg that problems were widespread across generating sources, including coal, natural gas, and even nuclear plants.

So blaming the grid failure on renewables is is either ignorance or deceitfulness.

The longest outage I've experienced was 3+ days after Beryl blew through the Houston metro. I slept in my Model 3 to have AC during the night, without any risk of being asphyxiated in my garage, then recharging it during the day from my panels.

Just noticed the 11717 MW was lower than the 17,000 so took a closer look, while that axis article was updated August 14, 2026 it used data from 2024:

according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s State Energy Data System for 2024

More recent data from July 2026:

Texas has now passed California to lead the country, at 17,082 MW against 15,698 MW.

Texas has 7,905 MW of battery storage, putting us at #2 in the US behind California's 11,717 MW, and I'm paying 12 cents a kWh.

Check the Previous Day on ERCOT's Fuel Mix you'll see the same thing is happening in Texas, though ERCOT's graph shows the sun in orange instead of yellow and our battery storage is shown in maroon instead of blue.

I've timed it - 3 seconds to plug in, 3 seconds to unplug.

I have a 14-30 extension cord so could plug into the 240V dryer outlet in the house if faster charging was needed, but it never was. I use the extension cord during road trips, like this one to Fort Benning in 2018 for my nephew's graduation from basic training.

I've noticed you like to spread a lot of EV FUD - do you work in the oil industry or do you just like exposing your ignorance?

Back in 2018 when I got my first Model 3 I used the lowly 120V outlet in my garage for 1.44 kW charging for the first 6 months without any problems. Even if I returned from a weekend trip close it empty it was OK as I'd gain enough extra range each night that I'd be back to full after a few nights.

I then switched to a free-nights electric plan and had a 240V outlet installed for 7.68 kW charging to make sure it would finish toping off the car during the free period.

Yes coal has slightly gone up in 2025, but it's dropped so much from the peak usage in 2007 that current usage is comparable to the early 1970s.

From the chart U.S. electricity generation by major energy source, 1950-2025 on Electricity generation, capacity, and sales in the United States:

1971 = 713 Billion kWh
1972 = 771 Billion kWh
...
2007 = 2016 Billion kWh - peak usage
...
2024 = 652 Billion kWh
2025 = 737 Billion kWh - lower than 1972

Note: use Click to enlarge below the chart to get a larger view, then mouse over the chart to see detailed numbers for each year.

So the plans may not be worth it if you cannot shift usage. I was on a free-nights plan in 2018 and was able to drop my bill by 20% vs the regular rate plan by having my Model 3 charge in the middle of the night and by using the delayed start feature on my washer and dishwasher.

I moved off the free-nights plan in 2019 after installing solar and switched to a net-metering plan, which was awesome.

The net metering plan's now gone. My current plan has time-of-use rates of $0.127/kWh from 6pm-9pm, $0.09/kWh all other times, and I get paid market rates for excess solar. Market rates aren't worth as much as net-metering, so I charge up a Powerwall during the day and run the house with it from 6pm-9pm. I also have my Model 3 configured to charge only on excess solar, which works well for me because I work from home.

In Texas Wind Power peaks at night, resulting in us having numerous free-nights electric plans to chose from. These work great with for EV owners.

Texas Solar Power has grown enough that we're now getting free-days electric plans such as from Chariot Energy and Direct Energy

How and why a nuclear reactor shut down in Texas cold snap when energy was needed most

One of two reactors shut down at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station an hour southwest of Houston, knocking out about half of its 2,700 megawatts of generating capacity.

Commodore BBS Sysop here, I wrote and ran The Dragon's Lair in Corpus Christi, and later Houston when I moved here for college. It originally ran on my VIC-20. I migrated my software to the C= 64 and C= 128 when I acquired those computers. We had PETSCII movies such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I also wrote MusicTerm, a custom terminal program that added features like 3-voice music, font control, sprite control, ability to play online games using your joystick, etc. If you're interested to learn more I blogged about it here, which includes a video of what a caller might experience.

A friend ran a BBS on his Atari so I added ATASCII support to my terminal program so I could call his BBS. The Atari BBS had ATASCII movies, such as Bruce Lee, which were similar to PETSCII movies just without color.

Tesla's done test drives for years, even here in Texas where they're not allowed to do direct sales. Due to state law they call the storefronts "galleries" where you can check out (and sit in) the different models and take them for test drives, though they're not allowed to discuss price or help you order the car.

In 2020 I tweeted about my folks' test drive of the Model Y as they were deciding between getting a Model 3 like mine or the larger Model Y. They ended up buying a Y.

You can schedule test drives ahead of time, or do so while you're checking out the cars at their storefront. In 2023 we checked out the Cybertruck and ended up taking a test drive of a Model X that we hadn't originally planned to do.

Long story short, have you tried the VLC app on your Apple TV for media on your local network?

I bought a Vizio PX75-G1 back in 2019 and originally used a Mac mini to drive it. I have HDHomeRun tuners and used the mini for OTA content - live TV and DVR functionality. The mini was also my media server with my content stored on a Drobo 8D and organized in iTunes.

After Drobo went under I ended up getting a Synology NAS that replaces both 8D as well as the Drobo 5D I used on my Mac Pro. I then learned the Synology could run the DVR software, as well as serve up media, so use the Synology for that now instead of the mini. I migrated the DVR software and setup Plex (I have a Lifetime Plex Pass from before they started to make all the changes). I was still using the mini for playback.

My physical media includes a lot of content from Europe - there's a major benefit of importing older European shows as PAL content is 576i whereas NTSC content is 480i, so a 20% increase in picture resolution which is quite noticeable on modern TVs.

I picked up an Apple TV 4K after learning it could play back 50 Hz content at 50 Hz provided the TV supported it, which the Vizio does. This eliminates the normal judder seen when watching 50 Hz content played back at 60 Hz - this judder is quite noticeable during scenes that pan the camera.

While I don't use it often, I have used the aforementioned VLC app on my Apple TV to play back content that wasn't in Plex. While not as nice as the Plex interface, VLC can drill down thru the Synology's filesystem to find and play content.

as the backlash if they don't respect the setting would be huge.

The backlash from me would be to use the Go Off-Grid option during the emergency, after which I'd switch to a different electricity provider.