Texas grid operator ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) on Monday asked residents to conserve electricity use as temperatures dropped below zero with wind chills in some parts of the state.
The conservation alert comes one day after ERCOT issued a warning to Texans as the state braces for freezing rain, snow and subzero temperatures.
ERCOT manages electric power for more than 26 million customers in Texas and accounts for 90% of the state's electric load, according to the company.
The Texas grid operator begged residents to avoid using large appliances, turn down thermostats by a degree or two, turn off and unplug non-essential lights, and set pool pumps to run early in the morning or all night; It is closed during peak hours due to issues with solar and wind generation.
“ERCOT has issued a conservation call for Tuesday, January 16, from 6 to 9 a.m. Central Time. With the winter storm covering the entire state and colder temperatures expected this evening and into tomorrow morning, ERCOT is asking Texans to conserve electricity, If it is safe to do so. At this time, if you experience an outage, it is local in nature and not related to network reliability. The network operator announced Monday.
TXANS UPDATE — JANUARY. January 15, 2024: ERCOT has issued its Conservation Call for Tuesday, January 16, from 6 to 9 a.m. Central Time. With a winter storm covering the entire state and temperatures expected to be much colder this evening and into tomorrow morning, ERCOT is asking Texans to keep… pic.twitter.com/2JBXFhnvkp
– ERCOT (@ERCOT_ISO) January 15, 2024
According to ERCOT, solar and wind generation this week is expected to be “seasonally below expected” during peak hours:
Why demand reduced usage?
- weather. Most of Texas experiences extremely cold temperatures for an extended period of time.
- Requests. Texas is seeing record demand due to cold weather.
- Solar. Solar generation is not available in the early morning hours, the peak demand time during the winter, and slowly increases as the sun rises.
- winds. Wind generation is expected to be less than seasonally expected in the early morning hours.
Will this year's bitter Arctic blast in Texas be a repeat of February 2021?
Nearly 3 years ago, Texas was exposed to a rare cold wave that extended to the southern part of the state and the power grid was cut off.
ERCOT began outages in February 2021 after wind turbines froze.
Millions of Texans were without power for days.
Temperatures dropped into the teens near Dallas and 20s around Houston with wind chills near zero.
According to state authorities, nearly half of the wind turbines in Texas froze, damaging the power supply.
Millions of Texans suffered power outages in part due to frozen wind turbines.
Nearly three years later, Texas still hasn't turned away from “green” energy sources to avoid deadly power outages caused by frozen wind turbines and a lack of solar generation.
