ERCOT sends out alert for possible “emergency conditions”, urges Texans to keep them – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

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AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, issued an alert on Tuesday, April 13, shortly after 4:30 p.m., warning of potential “emergency conditions,” but did not expect power outages.

On Twitter, ERCOT said: “Due to a combination of typical high genetic outages in April and higher-than-expected demand caused by a cold front stopped over the TX, ERCOT may be in an emergency. We do not expect customer outages. Declaring an emergency would allow us to access additional resources. “

In February, large-scale power outages left millions of Texans without electricity, heat and running water during two winter storms that brought single-digit temperatures.

ERCOT says it manages the flow of electricity to more than 26 million customers in Texas, accounting for 90% of the state’s electricity load.

Woody Rickerson, ERCOT’s vice president for network planning and operations, said ERCOT was expecting a cold front that stalled in central Texas to continue its progress across the state, lowering temperatures as it did.

The fact that the front was blocked led to a higher-than-expected demand, he said, adding that demand had dropped as the afternoon sun disappeared, but it could repeat conservation calls in the next three to four weeks.

However, 32,000 megawatts of generating capacity were taken offline, accounting for about 25 percent of the system’s capacity, Rickerson said.

Whatever the damage caused by the February cold snap, he said.

“These outages are maintenance outages that factories have taken to prepare for summer operations,” Rickerson told a news conference. “This is usually the time of year when we allow maintenance outages for units preparing for summer, when there is not enough bandwidth for them to interrupt.”

Rickerson called the decision whether to allow generators to be shut down for seasonal maintenance “a balancing act” with narrow margins of error between supply and demand. Because ERCOT is a completely autonomous network within the borders of Texas, it is not subject to federal regulations. It also means the ERCOT network does not have access to the spot market for electricity from other US power grids, Rickerson said.

Minutes after Tuesday’s first tweet, ERCOT urged Texans to keep their energy up until evening.

Customers can help you by following the ERCOT conservation steps:

· Switch off unnecessary lights and equipment.

· Raise the thermostat by 2 to 3 degrees.

· Set programmable thermostats to higher temperatures when no one is home.

· Use fans to feel cooler than 4 to 6 degrees.

· Limit the use of large appliances (for example, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, etc.).

· If cooking indoors, use a microwave or slow cooker.

· Close the blinds and curtains during the late afternoon.

· Schedule pool pumps to run early in the morning or overnight.

On Tuesday, at 20:40, ERCOT wrote on Twitter: “Our call for energy conservation ended without the need for an energy emergency. Thank you for conserving energy when needed. ”

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