The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is predicting a new winter peak demand for electricity this morning. Texans are expected to use 74,700 megawatts of power. State officials say the grid will have enough capacity to meet that demand with an extra 10,000 megawatts available if necessary.
"We have not seen any of our generation come off-line for cold weather situations, which is an indication that our weatherization program is working as we had hoped," said ERCOT CEO Brad Jones. "We have been operating in an extremely conservative manner. We have a high degree of confidence in our grid. We feel very comfortable in our current situation."
While the projected peak went up from a forecast issued last week, the amount of power available is also greater than ERCOT expected. That's mainly due to the performance of wind turbines in west Texas.
"We had been forecasting a significant level of icing in the western part of our state," Jones said. "That has not occurred as severely as we expected, and so our wind forecast now is much higher than it was previously."
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