Texas power grid meets demand, avoids outages during call to conserve energy Tuesday

Texas power grid meets demand, avoids outages

Supply met demand, and there were no outages. But energy experts say if it were just a few more degrees hotter in North Texas, it could have been worse.

DALLAS - ERCOT, the agency that manages the state's power grid, issued its first call to conserve so far this season.

It was a voluntary call to conserve that lasted until 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.

Supply met the demand Tuesday. But with more very hot days and weeks ahead, there could be continued strain on the grid.

With another day battling triple-digit temperatures statewide, Texans were asked to conserve energy amid record demand and extreme heat.

ERCOT requested a voluntary conservation notice for four hours from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

ERCOT asks Texans to conserve energy due to extreme heat

Supply met demand, and there were no outages. But energy experts like Joshua Rhodes from the University of Texas at Austin say if it were just a few more degrees hotter in North Texas, it could have been worse.

"It looks like Dallas is saving us right now. Because Dallas isn’t as hot as it can get," he explained. "Austin, San Antonio and Houston are as hot as it gets. Dallas is a few degrees cooler than it can get it. It’s still hot! Well over 100. But if it was 105, we could’ve seen a different story today."

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Tuesday’s high at DFW Airport didn’t quite get to triple digits, but the heat index was a dangerous 117 degrees with near-record dewpoints cranking up the humidity.

On ERCOT’s website, the demand line in blue didn’t pass the supply line in purple Tuesday. The closest margin came within less than 4,000 megawatts just before 6 p.m.

"That’s closer than it normally is, but we are pushing the grid to its limits. This is about as hot as it gets across the state historically anyways," Rhodes said. "So we have a fair number of contingencies that we haven’t pulled yet."

FOX 4 spoke to Rhodes just after 5 p.m. Tuesday when ERCOT’s grid conditions when from green to yellow, indicating the voluntary conservation notice was in effect.

To ease the strain on the grid, Texans were recommended to set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher if safe, avoid using large appliances and turn off and unplug lights.

Monday, Texas broke the record for June peak demand closing in on 80,000 megawatts and almost surpassing the all-time record which happened last July.

"Any individual person, it’s a little bit. But there are 30 million Texans," Rhodes said. "So you add up a little bit over a lot of time and you can end up with a meaningful amount of saving power."

Now, the voluntary conservation notice is just the first step in preventing rolling blackouts. Next would be mandating energy conservation, but we are not close to the extreme steps For Tuesday night.