ERCOT managed a power demand record without conservation calls

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texans required a record amount of electricity Tuesday night to stay cool as triple-degree temperatures baked much of the state, according to unofficial figures from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s power grid operator. Power demand reached 85,559 megawatts in the 5 p.m. hour, according to ERCOT spokesperson Trudi Webster, exceeding the previous record of 85,508 megawatts set in August 2023. One megawatt can power 250 Texas homes during the hottest summer days. ERCOT is responsible for coordinating the flow of electricity across the state and ensuring power supply matches demand at all times. The new record is unofficial until final settlements occur on the wholesale electricity market, which is also managed by ERCOT.

Power demand on Wednesday was expected to remain below 84,000 megawatts, according to the ERCOT dashboard, though the gap between supply and demand does narrow around 8 p.m., when solar power generation declines with sunset. That gap was even narrower Tuesday, and ERCOT still had enough supply to meet demand without having to ask Texans to conserve electricity. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said Tuesday that the grid operator has “had a very different experience” operating the grid this summer compared with last summer, when its system came the closest to outages since the infamous 2021 freeze. That’s partly because the weather has been more mild. Last year, ERCOT issued 11 requests for Texans to conserve electricity as record-breaking heat swept through the state for weeks. More than 15 gigawatts of power supply have also been added to the grid since last year, including 1.7 gigawatts of wind, 8.8 gigawatts of solar, 4.8 gigawatts of battery storage and 164 megawatts of gas. During Tuesday’s record-setting hour, natural gas power plants supplied more than 50% of power demand, while solar supplied more than 20%.