By Tom Kleckner
Faced with an increase in demand and generation outages, ERCOT declared another energy emergency alert Thursday afternoon, its second in three days after five years without calling one.
The Texas grid operator issued the Level 1 EEA when power reserves dropped below their 2.3-GW threshold just after 3 p.m. System load was 69.7 GW at the time, below that of Monday and Tuesday’s record peak demands.
Prices again hit the $9,000/MWh maximum for several 15-minute intervals during the late afternoon.
ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin said reserves were “tighter than expected” because the grid operator was without 5.2 GW of capacity that was available earlier in the week. (See ERCOT Survives Another Day in the Roaster.)
“Almost all the generation in the system has been online every day this week,” he said. “We knew we were going to be tight, but I think we’re tighter than expected.”
The EEA allows ERCOT to “take advantage of certain resources that are used for just this type of situation,” Woodfin said. The grid operator called on all available resources, deployed operating reserves and its 30-minute emergency response service, and requested energy imports over its ties with neighboring RTOs.
Woodfin also said the system’s wind production was lower than seen in previous days, contributing to the tight conditions.
Earlier this week, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said the grid operator sees a “trough” of wind generation in the early afternoon before the Gulf Coast wind facilities begin filling in the gap.
“You see higher levels of wind in the evening and into the morning,” he said. “So, often, even though we’re at peak load, some of our tightest conditions may show up earlier than you might expect, but we recover by the time we get over the peak.”
Both ERCOT and the Texas Public Utility Commission called on consumers to reduce their consumption through 7 p.m.
“The hot weather has continued throughout the month of August, and the Texas economy is strong, so two calls for conservation in the same week is not surprising,” PUC Chair DeAnn Walker said in a statement.
“Occasional calls for conservation are a natural part of running the most efficient electrical system in the world,” Commissioner Arthur D’Andrea said.
“Barring any other things that could happen, it doesn’t look like we’ll need a further [EEA] level today,” Woodfin said. “We don’t like to get into these conservation situations, but it’s something our operators train on.”
ERCOT declares a Level 2 EEA when operating reserves drop under 1.75 GW.
“This is a fluid situation, and can change at any time,” ERCOT spokesperson Leslie Sopko said during a media call.
Statewide temperatures were in the upper 90s on Thursday, but heat indexes were in triple figures.
