GERT / GRID NOTES 01 — FORWARDING PACK Version: winter-load-brief-v1 | Prepared September 13, 2026 SUBJECT IDEA Why can electricity use fall during a blackout? READY-TO-FORWARD TEXT Why can electricity use fall during a blackout? GERT offers a short, source-linked exercise using 72 hourly observations from the February 2021 Texas winter storm. Explore the recorded load, distinguish what the curve shows from what it cannot establish, and try a capacity assumption in the Historical Lab. Includes a downloadable chart, original-source links, and a self-check. Free to try, with no account required. This is a historical educational exercise, not a live forecast or an estimate of prevented outages. https://gert-d.vercel.app/briefs/winter-load LINKS PNG graphic: https://gert-d.vercel.app/briefs/winter-load.png Vector graphic: https://gert-d.vercel.app/briefs/winter-load.svg Exact plotted data: https://gert-d.vercel.app/briefs/winter-load-figure-data.json Interactive case: https://gert-d.vercel.app/history?case=winter-2021&capacity=60000&reduction=0 Review: https://gert-d.vercel.app/review SHORT FIGURE CREDIT Graphic and exercise: GERT / Dresden Goehner. Data: ERCOT Native Load 2021. Event context: ERCOT news release, February 15, 2021. Sources and limitations: https://gert-d.vercel.app/briefs/winter-load ALT TEXT 72 hourly ERCOT native-load observations, February 14–16, 2021, on a zero-to- 80-GW scale. A dashed line marks the reported onset of rotating outages at 01:25 CST on February 15. The curve falls but does not measure unmet demand or reliability. All values and sources are available with the exercise. INTERPRETATION AND PRIVACY The event marker indicates onset, not the amount or duration of lost load. The load curve does not identify how much electricity customers would have used without interruptions. Do not label the drop as measured outage losses, energy savings, improved reliability, or GERT's effect on the grid. The two-question self-check runs locally in the visitor's browser. Its optional download is self-reported, contains no name or email, and is not a certificate or independently verified participant record. There is no automatic submission. SOURCE AND REUSE NOTES Raw data: https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/11/12/Native_Load_2021.zip Event context: https://www.ercot.com/news/release?id=9c552983-008a-3906-8066-8b76315ed3e7 Data terms (section 5 permits public raw data in compilations/charts/analyses): https://www.ercot.com/help/terms Archive SHA256: 63d77e711fbcf838aff1666df475cd86a1fa939ad8aecd60a1bfe5039c4e5b91 No affiliation with, or endorsement by, ERCOT or another organization is implied. The license below covers original GERT software and associated material, not ownership of ERCOT's data, third-party reports, logos, or trademarks. Preserve the chart's credit, source links, and material limitations in redistribution. MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 Dresden Goehner Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.