Rolling Blackouts Possible In Texas Amid Record Power Usage

AUSTIN, TX — A new winter peak electricity demand record was set on Sunday evening as residents blasted their heaters in attempts to stay warm amid an Arctic blast across the state — prompting calls for reduced usage and the potential for rotating blackouts in the coming days.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the new record reached reaching 69,150 megawatts between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. as temperatures plunged in the single digits in much of Texas — more than 3,200 megawatts higher than the previous winter peak set in January 2018.

"We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas," ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness said in a prepared statement. "At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units. We are asking Texans to take some simple, safe steps to lower their energy use during this time."

The Austin-based ERCOT manages the flow of electric power on the Texas interconnection that supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers — representing 90 percent of the state's electric load, according to its website.

While Texas resident buy their electricity from utility companies, cooperatives or cities, the nonprofit ERCOT works with providers to manage the flow of power to the lion's share of the state.

With demand close to outstripping demand, officials urged residents to reduce their electricity use as much as possible. Officials issued some tips on lowering electricity use:

• Turn down thermostats to 68-degrees.
• Close shades and blinds to reduce the amount of heat lost through windows.
• Turn off and unplug non-essential lights and appliances.
• Avoid using large appliances (i.e., ovens, washing machines, etc.).
• Businesses should minimize the use of electric lighting and electricity-consuming equipment as much as possible.
• Large consumers of electricity should consider shutting down or reducing non-essential production processes.

Although a last resort, rolling power outages could be implemented on Monday and Tuesday to control usage, Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations for ERCOT, said. “If the additional resources available during an EEA [energy emergency alert] (are) still not sufficient to balance generation and load, and we still don't have enough resources to serve the demand, then we could have to implement what's called rotating outages … so that we've got enough resources to cover what's what's left,” Woodfin said, as quoted by the Texas Tribune.

But ERCOT would exhaust other steps before such a measure is taken, such as importing power from other regions, request extra power from transmission companies or release generation reserves under level-one, level-two or level-three energy emergency alerts, as Texas Tribune reported.

Yet in the capital city of Austin, such rotating power outages were set to be implemented to ease the strain on the electric grid. Early Monday, officials said in an advisory that the Austin-Travis County Emergency Operations Center would be sending an emergency message through Warn Central Texas to alert the public that rotating power outages are necessary.

Such outages would last between 10 to 40 minutes, Austin Energy officials wrote on Twitter.

The emergency message alerting to rolling outages will be sent by text message and email to all Warn Central Texas subscribers in Austin-Travis County in both English and Spanish. The message says, “Due to record electric demand, Texas electric grid operator is directing rotating outages to protect electric grid reliability. Outages typically 40 mins or less. Length and frequency depend on severity of event. Prepare for possible power interruptions due to mandated rotating outages.”

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Austin officials said the first alert was sent 30 minutes after the advisory, which was issued at 1:32 a.m. on Monday. The high demand was illustrated by power outages affecting thousands of utility customers. Pedernales Electric Cooperative said more than 1,000 customers were without power on Sunday night.

Austin Energy officials also urged conservation after having reported tens of thousands without power the last few days and just over 1,000 on Sunday.

• For information on ERCOT's emergency procedures under tight grid scenarios, click here.
• For more information on additional tools and resources available to ERCOT under an energy emergency alert, click here.
• For consumer assistance, call the Public Utility Commission of Texas hotline at 1-888-782-8477.