ERCOT anticipates 'significant increase' in upcoming Texas power demand forecast
Last spring, Texas lawmakers were stunned by a forecast showing statewide demand for electricity nearly doubling in just six years. The state grid operator’s 2025 version of that report is likely to show even heftier demand spikes.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas forecast won’t be out for another couple of months but CEO Pablo Vegas told regulators last week he expected another “fairly significant increase.” Ahead of its release, another recent report is stoking worries the state could run short on power in the next few years. Despite dire coverage from some media outlets, though, Vegas made clear the booming demand doesn’t mean the state grid is in danger. “This is not a good representation of an operational forecast or what we would expect to happen in real time operations in the future,” Vegas told a Thursday meeting of the Public Utility Commission. “It’s just showing a trend of where the supply and demand is going.” RELATED: Is Texas breaking up with bitcoin miners? As ERCOT faces demand growth, lawmakers challenge crypto. The forecast that caught lawmakers’ attention a year ago showed demand could surpass 150 gigawatts by 2030 from its current 85.5-gigawatt peak. Lawmakers, awakened to the reality of the state’s rapidly increasing demand for power, took aim at power-hungry crypto miners and data centers. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick turned to social media to voice concerns about such users “crashing” the grid. But demand growth isn’t happening unaccompanied by rapidly increasing supply and legislation regarding the grid. So far this session, lawmakers have filed several energy and grid-related bills, including a Senate priority bill filed last week that takes aim at transmission planning and grid reliability. Report ‘fiction’ The talk of load growth came as commissioners and Vegas discussed ERCOT’s reserve margins report, which showed worst-case scenarios that led some to conclude the state could be short on capacity as soon as next year. “This report just takes snapshots in times in the future of potential amounts of supply, potential amounts of load, does arithmetic and shows what their planning reserve margins would be,” Vegas told commissioners last week. Grid Expert Doug Lewin called the annual report — officially the Report on Capacity, Demand and Reserves — “fiction,” adding that it has outlived its usefulness by many years. That’s because the analysis assumes extremely high loads without accounting for how the market would respond to actual price signals or curtailments. ERCOT’s intention with the analysis is to send market signals to inform investment of where new reserves should be developed. Vegas’ discussion with regulators over the new reserves report conjured bigger questions lawmakers and regulators are likely to run into this legislative session. RELATED: ERCOT enters 'new era' as it stares down unprecedented demand growth by 2030 Chief among them: How to make the data ERCOT is using to create its forecasts uniform. As is, transmission providers each come up with their own criteria to determine whether a load of expected power should be included in the estimates they file with the state. “It would be helpful for there to be more consistency across that community and transparency in terms of what that criteria is,” Vegas told commissioners. “I think there’s a lot of questions as to the veracity of the size of that load, and kind of what makes it up, so that there could be some sort of a gut check to know whether it’s well grounded based on expected trends.” The San Antonio Express-News reported in August that while energy experts agree ERCOT is facing an unprecedented amount of load growth for which it needs to proactively plan, it’s unlikely to hit the mammoth figure of 150 gigawatts by the end of the decade. Possible revisions Commission Chair Thomas Gleeson said he expected people to be “struck” by the reserve margin report. It shows a mix of worse-case scenario factors causing an 8.3% shortfall of power during peak demand in 2027 and 32.4% just two years later. But much of ERCOT’s analysis uses the 150 gigawatt load forecast as its base. RELATED: ERCOT’s 2030 load projection shocked lawmakers, but some experts say that estimate is overblown Gleeson floated having two separate forecast processes — one for long-range transmission planning and one for grid reliability. Vegas agreed that could be the right approach. Transmission lines take longer to build than generation. Transmission is a long-haul infrastructure investment that is meant to last several decades. Vegas said that the 150 gigawatt benchmark for 2030 load growth could be off by a few years, which wouldn’t have a major impact on transmission planning. Ideally, transmission is ready to handle increasing influxes of generation before it’s all online. Or else, you wind up with more sore points like ERCOT is already dealing with in South Texas, where it sometimes has to curtail generation at the risk of overcrowding transmission lines. “Whether it’s within a year or two or even three of the forecasted time period is less consequential, because you’re building infrastructure that’s going to be used and depreciated over 50-plus years,” Vegas said. “But for reliability modeling, it’s really important specifically what year the load actually activates and turns on. It makes a huge difference, if we’re talking gigawatts of load that may be modeled in 2030 but actually will be staged over the next two to three years.” RELATED: Texas GOP bills take aim at battery storage sites as industry worries about 'supply squeeze' Vegas and Gleeson agreed it’s important to keep the conversation going over how best to reflect load from a reliability standpoint versus a transmission planning standpoint. “If we’re able to better reflect a more accurate kind of pacing based on what we think will actually happen, I think we’ll see a real benefit in the quality of these reports and analyses,” Vegas said.
Public Utility Commission Senate San Antonio Express-News GOP Pablo Vegas Dan Patrick Thomas Gleeson Doug Lewin South Texas Vegas Vegas
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