RE:Heat Wave = Increased Nat Gas Consumption The Texas energy situation is nothing new and will continue on for a long time to come yet. Their Reliabilty Power Council (should be called UNreliability) is full of political patrongers and not professional power folks.
I worked a lot in Texas. The main problem is that they are Texans and think they are better than all the other states. They are fiercely independent and still fancy themselves as an "independent nation". So much so that they are building their own Fort Knox.
They have long abandoned (since President Roosevelt) being a part of the National power system.
So power can not be transfered to them from the US grid but in some portions of Texas they can get power from Mexico which they have to go beg for. Go figure!
I play nat gas futures. I would not read much into this since Texas is not the norm. I live in the Deep South and the vast majority of our power comes from coal burning stations for our great air conditioning needs.