In an unwelcome reminder of February’s winter disaster, ERCOT called for conservation measures Tuesday afternoon as grid conditions approached the criteria for a first-level energy emergency alert.

CEO Bill Magness told the ISO’s Board of Directors that the grid operator did not expect customer outages, saying an EEA 1 “allows us to access tools that will bring supply and demand back into line.”

A combination of above-normal seasonal generation outages — much-needed after the winter storm — and unusually high demand led ERCOT to call for all available resources and issue an advisory for physical responsive capability ancillary services.

“We’re watching this in the control room, obviously,” Magness said.

ERCOT was quick to respond on Twitter, using the platform to issue a pair of warnings within five minutes of each other about possible emergency conditions. On Wednesday, it tweeted again to say the grid would again face tight conditions but that conservation was not needed. 

The grid operator was criticized for poor communications leading up the February uncontrolled “controlled outages.” Reaction to last week’s proactive measures was mixed. 

“I appreciate the increased effort toward transparency, but wow this is nerve wracking to see in April,” state Rep. Erin Zwiener (D) tweeted. 

The ISO called off the conservation measures at 8:40 p.m. Tuesday. 

A cold front that was expected to clear out overcast conditions stalled over the state, reducing wind and solar production. However, half of ERCOT’s baseload operational capacity, about 32 of 64 GW, is offline.

“That’s not an abnormal number for this time of the year,” Woody Rickerson, ERCOT’s vice president of grid planning and operations, said during a media call.

ERCOT had forecasted demand Tuesday of 49.1 GW, but that leveled off after reaching 48 GW. Temperatures remained in the mid-80s Tuesday afternoon, driving the increased demand.

“We’ve had to monitor this extremely closely, and it has been challenging,” said Magness, who was fired last month but remains at the grid operator’s helm during a 60-day transition period. (See ERCOT Board Cuts Ties with Magness.)

Wholesale prices climbed above $1,000/MWh for the second time in three days, hitting the new $2,000/MWh cap during the interval ending at 5:30 p.m. (CDT).

ERCOT’s scarcity pricing normally caps at $9,000/MWh, but after an extended time at the high offer cap, the system automatically reverts to the low offer cap (the higher of $2,000 or 50 times the fuel index price) and stays there for the rest of the year before resetting.

Board Defers Decision on Interim CEO

The ERCOT board was scheduled to vote Tuesday on appointing an interim CEO to replace Magness, but deferred the decision until a later date.

“We’re still working on the interim solution,” Director Mark Carpenter said after the board spent more than five hours in executive session.

The board, which normally meets every other month, has scheduled a second session this month for April 27.