(Reuters) – Power demand in Texas hit another all-time high on Tuesday as consumers crank up their air conditioners to escape a lingering heat wave after homes and businesses conserved energy earlier this week to avoid help avoid rotating blackouts.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state’s power load, warned over the weekend that it might have to take emergency measures on Monday, including rotating blackouts, to maintain reliability.
But conservation efforts and thunderstorms reduced energy use enough to enable available resources to meet record demand.
Extreme weather is a reminder of the February freeze in 2021 that left millions of Texans without power, water and heat for days during a deadly storm as ERCOT scrambled to prevent a grid collapse after an unusually large amount of generation shut.
AccuWeather forecast temperatures in Houston, the biggest city in Texas, will reach 104 Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) on Wednesday. That would be the hottest day in the city since August 2015 when highs reached 106 F and compares with a normal high of 94 F for this time of year, according to federal data.
ERCOT forecast power use hit a preliminary 78,419 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday, topping the prior record of 78,264 MW on Monday, and will reach 78,963 MW on Wednesday.
One megawatt can power around 1,000 U.S. homes on a typical day, but only about 200 homes on a hot summer day in Texas.
Power prices at the ERCOT North Hub, which includes Dallas, jumped to a near 13-month high of $280 per megawatt hour for Wednesday from $130 for Tuesday. That compares with an average of $70 so far this year, $141 in 2021 and a five-year (2017-2021) average of $56.
Graphic: Texas power demand to soar to record high this year Texas power demand to soar to record high this year, https://graphics.reuters.com/TEXAS-POWER/ERCOT/gkplgzymyvb/chart.png
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
