ERCOT issued a watch on Wednesday as cold weather began to tumble into the state, saying it is taking action ahead of an expected increase in demand to ensure grid reliability. The watch is effective through Sunday.

“We are ready for this storm. We will be prepared for this,” interim CEO Brad Jones said during a press conference Tuesday with other Texas officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott (R).

The grid operator’s weather forecasts indicate a “potential for significant frozen precipitation behind this week’s cold front,” Jones said in a statement.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storming warning for Central Texas and a winter weather advisory for the rest as part of a 2,000-mile-long stretch of ice and snow that The Weather Channel has dubbed Winter Storm Landon. Temperatures are expected to be the lowest so far for the Lone Star State.

ERCOT currently expects demand to peak at 71.97 GW on Friday morning. That would break the record peak of 69.2 GW before the grid nearly collapsed during last February’s winter storm.

Jones said during the press conference that ERCOT expects to have about 86 GW of capacity to meet demand on Friday. The grid operator continues to operate conservatively, increasing operating reserves, bringing more generation online sooner if needed and procuring more ancillary services. It has also delayed generator maintenance and asked that units return from maintenance before the front hits.

Staff recently completed hundreds of winter-readiness inspections of generation, transmission and distribution facilities to check their compliance with new regulations. ERCOT said it found only three with deficiencies.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during Tuesday’s press conference, with PUC’s Peter Lake and ERCOT’s Brad Jones (left to right). (Office of the Texas Governor) | Office of the Texas Governor

“We feel very comfortable about their level of readiness,” Jones said.

Abbott, who is up for re-election and fending off primary challengers to his right, has said since November that the lights will stay on this winter, a promise echoed frequently by Peter Lake, his appointed chair of the Public Utility Commission.

On Tuesday, Abbott acknowledged that “no one can guarantee that there won’t be a ‘load-shed event.’” He went on to say that outages will likely be at the local level because of icing power lines and trees falling onto lines.

“But what we will work and strive to achieve — and what we’re prepared to achieve — is that the power’s going to stay on across the entire state,” Abbott said.

Jim Wright, chair of the state’s natural gas regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, countered concerns that the industry remains a weak link by saying that inspections have found 98% of natural gas facilities have been winterized. He said the 10 to 12 GW of gas plant outages during an earlier cold snap “were not anything out of the normal.”

However, the Houston Chronicle reported that its review of the inspection reports indicated that only 41% of the oil and gas facilities had successfully tested their weatherized equipment or procedures.

Jones said ERCOT is already aware of gas restrictions affecting as much as 2.6 GW of energy production this week, primarily in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

ERCOT issues a watch when extreme cold weather is imminent and expected to have a negative effect on its footprint.

The Texas grid operator previously issued an operating condition notice Jan. 27 and a notice of “extreme cold weather event with potential icing conditions” on Monday. (See ERCOT, SPP Prep for Latest Wintry Blast.)

SPP Declares Resource Advisory

SPP raised its initial cold weather advisory issued Monday to a resource advisory on Tuesday for its entire Eastern Interconnection footprint. The notice was effective Wednesday through Saturday.

The RTO declared the advisory because of outages, wind forecast uncertainty, cold weather and icing’s effects on generation resources. Resource advisories do not require conservation measures but do serve notice to utilities in the grid operator’s balancing authority that SPP may use greater unit commitment notification time frames. This includes committing the footprint’s long-lead resources to account for possible icing on wind units.

A spokesperson said SPP does not currently expect to progress to more extreme advisories or alerts at this time. “We are relying on our diverse fuel mix and coordinating closely with our members,” Meghan Sever said.

The National Weather Service is predicting up to a quarter-inch of ice and as much as 6 inches of snow in central Oklahoma. Flights out of the state are being canceled, and schools began closing on Wednesday.

Kansas and Missouri are also expected to see signification snow fall this week.