The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says it's planning for increased demand as the state grows. ERCOT's vice president of systems planning and weatherization spoke at an event organized by the Metroport Chamber in southern Denton County Wednesday.
"So what is ERCOT? Anybody heard of us in the news?" Kristi Hobbs asked.
Hobbs laid out ERCOT's strategic plan, starting with grid reliability.
"We were predicting to be reliable this summer," she said. "So far, knock on wood, we haven't had to ask you for conservation."
As the operator of the grid, ERCOT does not run power plants or transmission lines, but Hobbs says the organization is working to control costs and grow its mission as an industry leader.
Since last year, she says generators have added more than 10,000 megawatts of power, led by solar with 6,327 MW, battery storage with 2,846 MW, wind with 1,527 MW and then natural gas with 146 MW.
Hobbs says renewable sources provide cleaner energy, but thermal sources like natural gas provide a more reliable source of power. Since starting with ERCOT 22 years ago, she says the grid has changed.
"We didn't have to worry about whether the wind was going to blow or the sun was going to go down that evening," she says.
Hobbs says ERCOT is also working to more accurately predict usage. She says data centers are using more power, and that demand will grow in the future.
"When you drive by [a data center] on the interstate and you think, 'that looks like just another storage building coming up,' do you realize some of those data centers utilize more power than the City of Lubbock?" she says.
ERCOT says demand could nearly double in the next six years. During the hottest day of 2023, Hobbs says Texans used 85,000 MW of electricity. She says models show usage could increase to 150,000 MW by 2030.
"That's great because that means Texas is growing. That means your business is growing, but that also means there are some challenges ahead as well as opportunities to reliably meet that," Hobbs says.
After the creation of the Texas Energy Fund last year, the Public Utility Commission started offering low income loans to attract more generation. Since then, ERCOT says natural gas generators have made plans to add 22 GW to the system.
"Some of it is speculative. Some of it is people with multiple points of interconnection, and they're testing out the process, but it does show a lot of interest in moving to Texas to support the grid," Hobbs says.
Hobbs says battery storage and solar and wind generation projects can be completed in six months to two years, but they are not often placed in areas with transmission lines.
"We've got think about how do we evolve to meet that?" she says.
Hobbs says planning and construction for new generation and transmission lines can take three to six years in Texas, but because the state operates its own grid, utilities can work faster here. She says other regions can take seven to 13 years to complete a project.
"As ERCOT continues to evolve, we no longer can think of operating the grid the way we used to," Hobbs says. "We want to work with you. We want to work with stakeholders, and we want to work with our regulators, and we're open to ways we can continue to do that."
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