ERCOT and the Texas state government had no role in these recent power outages. Unlike 2021, where there were significant generation and transmission problems on a statewide level, the 2023 power outages in Austin were a result of local infrastructure - managed by the city itself through the municipally-owned utility Austin Energy - not being adequately maintained to deal with extreme weather. In particular, tree trimming programs were scaled down for over a decade due to public complaints, and that ended up being a big problem when those tree branches fell onto power lines and knocked out power for significant chunks of the city for days.