ERCOT control room issues evening ‘watch’ as Texas power grid capacity could narrow
The state grid operator’s control room warned operators Wednesday there could be a shortage in power reserve capacity leading to an evening risk of emergency grid conditions. The message was posted as a watch Wednesday morning, citing the 8 p.
m to 9 p.m. hour as the period when the shortage could impact the grid. Despite the move, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that the grid was operating under normal conditions. RELATED: ERCOT issues first hot weather watch of the year ahead of possible tight grid conditions Wednesday “ERCOT will continue to monitor conditions and keep the public informed through our communication channels,” it said. The grid operator is facing an unusually high number of plant outages, which leave it with less power available to manage the day’s demand — especially when solar power drops off after sundown. If capacity and demand got too tight, ERCOT could issue an emergency energy alert. The first level of such an alert would allow it to access power reserves to avoid outages or rolling blackouts. It would also ask Texans to reduce their power use. ERCOT isn’t asking for conservation yet but issued a weather watch Tuesday — unusual in part because it came two weeks before the official start of summer. It’s also more than six weeks earlier than last year’s first watches. Wednesday’s weather forecast showed temperatures were likely to be higher than usual, which is pushing up demand as Texans turn up air conditioners to stay cool. Demand is projected to peak at 3 p.m. at 71,000 megawatts, topping the previous May record of 68,159 megawatts. It’s still well below the all-time peak demand record of 85,508 megawatts set Aug. 10. The state’s afternoon solar power cushion will help it through the peak period but problems could start after sundown because of the plant shutdowns. The state’s aging coal and gas-fired plants use the spring period to perform needed maintenance and repairs between their heavy use in the winter and summer. As a result, total outages across generation platforms were about 30,000 megawatts at noon Wednesday. Coal and gas-fired outages made up about 25,000 megawatts of that total — 6,000 megawatts planned and 19,000 megawatts forced, as of noon. Last summer, ERCOT issued 11 conservation notices. The first voluntary conservation notice was issued June 20. As of 12:30 p.m., ERCOT’s demand and capacity forecast showed a narrow margin of about 1,300 megawatts of available power just before 9 p.m.
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