WACO, Texas (KWTX) – Power outages in much of Texas could continue at least Tuesday, Texas Electric Reliability Council officials said Monday morning.
In a call with media representatives, Chief Operating Officer Dan Woodfin said ERCOT had reached a new peak demand at all times and that the system may not have been able to handle the task.
Woodfin acknowledged that a planned break of up to 45 minutes was pushed far beyond that in several places in Texas. He declined to say when power could be restored, but said he works non-stop to do so.
At around 1:25 a.m., according to a press release, ERCOT went into an emergency and initiated interruptions at that time. They say that at that time, about 10,500 MW of customer charging was thrown out of the system. This is enough power to serve about two million homes.
However, extreme weather conditions forced several energy sources to disconnect at that time, according to the statement.
This amounts to over 30,000 MW of generating energy.
During the call, officials said that this is the longest period of time that the rotating interruptions have taken place.
Currently, about two million people are left powerless in Texas, many in central Texas.
ERCOT asks everyone to save energy as much as possible, to reduce the stress of the electricity grid while working to bring everyone back online.
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