Hundreds of thousands of people in southeastern Texas are still without power, one week after Hurricane Beryl caused devastation on its path through the state.

Some 288,000 energy customers were in the dark and Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, leaving many without air conditioning as a persistent heat wave brings temperature of up to 93 degrees.

The Texas power grid operator asked residents to conserve power a second time this week as a blast of cold weather plummeted temperatures well below freezing for much of the state.

This new conservation request was from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Tuesday, when the sun was fully up. Solar power is expected to boost the power supply.

With a punishing heat wave across Texas driving record high power demand, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas late Sunday sent out a request that Texans cut back on their energy use on Monday.

ERCOT, the state’s power grid operator, asked Texans to turn up their thermostats and postpone running major appliances between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday. ERCOT has also called on large electric customers to lower their electricity use.

Total forecasted power demand is expected to surpass 79 gigawatts on Monday, ERCOT said — which would set another record.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign is disputing accounts that he ordered Texas’ power grid operator to set electricity prices at a sky high cap during 2021′s deadly winter storm.

Abbott’s critics and his presumptive Democratic opponent in November’s election pounced on reports of testimony in federal court from former ERCOT CEO Bill Magness Wednesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said “no one can guarantee” there won’t be power outages in the state during a winter storm expected to hit a wide swath of the nation starting Wednesday, despite his promise months ago to the millions affected by last year’s freeze that the lights would stay on this year.

Texas’ utility regulator had an opportunity Friday to eliminate some of the $16 billion that the state’s grid operator erroneously overcharged power companies during last month’s deadly winter storm — but the board of the Public Utility Commission chose not to do so.

Some Texas electricity customers could have benefited from a decision to readjust the electricity market prices for the week of the storm, according to PUC Chair Arthur D’Andrea and some independent analysts. But other customers could have been harmed by such a move, D’Andrea said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Griddy, saying the electricity provider passed along massive increases during winter storms, leaving some customers to face up to $5,000 in power bills. Paxton's lawsuit says Griddy deceived customers when it promised low "wholesale" energy prices.

The state says it received more than 400 complaints about Griddy in less than two weeks.

The massive power outages and resulting disruptions (and deaths) in Texas after a period of extreme cold in mid-February have significant implications for the nation as a whole. The high-profile catastrophe could also affect U.S. public opinion on several key issues.

The head of the state's power grid operator on Thursday defended the group’s decision to order widespread blackouts during last week's winter storm, telling state lawmakers that doing so helped prevent a larger disaster.

Last week’s freezing weather led to skyrocketing demand and unprecedented strain on the power grid, forcing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to enact sustained outages across the state to keep its grid from collapsing.

The arctic freeze in Texas caused refineries to release tons of pollutants into the air last week, Reuters reported Sunday.

Reuters reports that refineries and petrochemical plants rushed to shut down as freezing temperatures spread out across the state and impacted the power and natural gas supplies needed to run the plants. The shutdowns resulted in flares, the burning and release of gases, in order to prevent damage to the processing units.