The Electric Reliability Council of Texas returned to normal operations on Wednesday night after declaring a Level 2 and Level 1 energy emergency in the afternoon. The declarations left many wondering if the state was running out of power.
“Due to low reserves and a drop in frequency, ERCOT entered directly into EEA 2. To protect the stability of the electric system, ERCOT has access to additional reserve sources only available during emergency conditions,” Pablo Vegas, ERCOT President and CEO, shared with CBS News. “High demand, lower wind generation, and the declining solar generation during sunset led to lower operating reserves on the grid and eventually contributed to lower frequency, which precipitated the emergency level 2 declaration.”
Luckily, the situation was resolved within the day, as the council never had to use controlled outages to limit energy usage.
“No power outages associated with the ERCOT power grid were necessary,” ERCOT said.
Instead, ERCOT deployed additional resources throughout the state. Still, ERCOT is asking everyone to reduce their electric use.
Thanks in part to extreme weather hitting the state, a new September peak demand record of 82,705 Megawatts was set. The all-time peak demand record was set at the beginning of August at 85,435 Megawatts, according to Reuters.
Power has been a hot topic this summer, especially with the grid seeing extra strain thanks to the record heat throughout the southern parts of the country.
According to Rob Allerman, the senior director of power analytics at Enverus, who talked with Forbes, the Texas power grid is “tired” from all the work it’s done this year.
“We’re all tired of the heat here in Texas, and the grid’s tired, too,” Allerman said. “We’re seeing more and more outages, and that just makes sense, right? We’ve been hot since May, and so the units have been running constantly, and some of those units are quite old. And so, things just start to wear down and break.”
The heat means extra work for grid managers at ERCOT, which has seen demand rise to record levels as workers ensure lights and air conditioners stay on in homes and businesses across the state.
But when it comes to worries Texans have about ERCOT not being able to meet demands after February 2021’s power outage, Allerman says that the state’s power grid has only continued to grow in the last three years.
“We do have more solar capacity, so that’s the good news,” he says. “The other good news is that we have a lot more [backup battery] storage now. We didn’t have any storage really [in past years], and we’re up to almost two gigs of storage now.”
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok