ERCOT has issued several notices and advisories as it prepares for expected record electric usage into early next week.
The Texas grid operator on Monday declared an operating condition notice through Feb. 16 for extreme cold weather expected in the region. It has since issued an advisory and a watch; a watch indicates the control room anticipates tight grid conditions.
ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said the weather system is projected to bring the coldest weather that Texas has seen in decades.
Based on the current load forecast and dropping temperatures, staff expect ERCOT to set a new all-time winter peak demand record Feb. 15.
“With temperatures rapidly declining, we are already seeing high electric use and anticipating record-breaking demand in the ERCOT region,” he said in a statement released Thursday.
The grid operator’s current winter peak demand high is 65.9 GW, set in January 2018.
Senior Meteorologist Chris Coleman expects temperatures in the 20s and 30s into the weekend, “peaking” on Feb. 16 in the single digits. The winter storm will drop several inches of snow on Dallas and bring ice to Houston next Monday, he said.
ERCOT has asked generators to prepare their facilities by reviewing fuel supplies and planned outages and implementing winter weatherization procedures. Staff are also working with transmission operators to minimize transmission outages.
The grid operator said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will maximize dispatched generation by exercising “its enforcement discretion” for resources’ “exceedances of emission and operational limits … that exceed air permit limits.”
