Texas Politicians Aim to Penalize Wind and Solar in Response to Outages. Are Renewables Now Strong Enough to Defend Themselves? Proposed legislation would shift costs to wind and solar power plants, even though gas plants played a larger role in the February power crisis. April 17, 2021 People wait in line for Fiesta Mart to open after the store lost electricity in Austin, Texas on Feb. 17, 2021. Credit: Montinique Monroe/Getty Images Related Share this article Texas lawmakers are pushing legislation aimed at what they see as the culprit in the massive power outages and more than 100 deaths during February’s winter storm: wind and solar power.