Texans asked to conserve electricity as power grid again strained — this time amid mild weather, maintenance

AUSTIN, Texas – The organization that runs Texas' power grid asked people to conserve energy Tuesday night as demand threatened to outstrip supply — a situation created by inaccurate power generation forecasts and power plants being voluntarily shut down for maintenance issues.

Hours later, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is commonly known as ERCOT, ended its request for residents to conserve electricity.

About 25% of Texas' power generation potential was offline due to maintenance, according to ERCOT. That coupled with warmer-than-expected temperatures and misses on daily forecasts on Texas' power grid created a "tight market," said Woody Rickerson, vice president of grid planning and operations for ERCOT.

Tuesday's situation from ERCOT comes in the wake of the February freeze that knocked out power to millions of Texans when a number of power-generating units failed in the winter weather.

The Texas Legislature has been considering a number of bills that would call for reforms in how the state's power grid operates.

RALPH BARRERA / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
RALPH BARRERA / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Though ERCOT was on the verge of issuing an emergency declaration, Rickerson said power grid operators does not expect to order any blackouts. Demand on Texas' power grid was expected to dip as the evening progressed, as air conditioners are turned off while temperatures decline.

March 25: Texas death toll from February winter storm, power outages surpasses 110

Rickerson said the plants being offline for maintenance likely were not related to outages in the February winter storm event.

"None of those (outages) that I'm aware of — well, maybe, maybe some of them — most of them are not due to damage from the winter storm," he said.

The 32 megawatts of power generation offline due to maintenance is enough to power roughly 13 million homes. The plants are offline because power companies are preparing them for summer months, when demand on the system is usually much higher than an April day like Tuesday, when highs across Texas were in the 70s and 80s.

"In April of every year we see a lot of outages for regular maintenance, and what we're seeing is not that unusual," Rickerson said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: ERCOT called for conservation as Texas power grid faces stress