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The
Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates
the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about
90% of the state's power load, warned over the weekend that it
may have to take emergency measures on Monday, including
rotating blackouts, to maintain reliability.
But conservation efforts reduced energy use enough to enable
available resources to meet Monday's record demand.
Extreme weather is a reminder of the February freeze in 2021
that left millions of Texans without power, water and heat for
days during a deadly storm as ERCOT scrambled to prevent a grid
collapse after an unusually large amount of generation shut.
AccuWeather said temperatures in Houston, the biggest city in
Texas, will rise from 99 Fahrenheit (37.2 Celsius) on Tuesday to
100 F on Wednesday. That compares with a normal high of 94 F for
this time of year.
ERCOT forecast power use hit a preliminary 78,264 megawatts (MW)
on Monday, topping the prior record of 78,204 MW on July 8, and
will reach 79,226 MW on Tuesday and 79,392 MW on Wednesday.
Unlike Monday, however, ERCOT has not yet urged consumers to
conserve energy on Tuesday and Wednesday.
One megawatt can power around 1,000 U.S. homes on a typical day,
but only about 200 homes on a hot summer day in Texas.
Power prices at the ERCOT North Hub, which includes Dallas, slid
to $130 per megawatt hour (MWh) for Tuesday from $158 for
Monday. That compares with an average of $68 so far this year,
$141 in 2021 and a five-year (2017-2021) average of $56.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by David Evans)
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