by Jim Malewitz
The “polar vortex” that swept across much of the nation early this month knocked two North Texas power plants offline just as residents began turning up the heat and revving up power use. Grid operators fixed the problem, but not before warning consumers that they were a step away from issuing rolling blackouts.
With that, the weather added fuel to a high-stakes debate about the state’s electricity market and the demands of its soaring population.
“With low temperatures earlier this week, we narrowly escaped rolling blackouts,” a group of electric generators warned in a full-page advertisement in the Austin American-Statesman just days afterward. “We won’t be so lucky in the years ahead if we don’t take action now.”
As the generators and big energy users like manufacturers spar in Austin over how…