Energy storage resources bailed out the ERCOT grid May 8, providing a record amount of energy to help the Texas grid operator through the first tight conditions of the maintenance season. 

Discharging batteries provided 3,195 MW at 8:05 p.m. CT, according to Grid Status, meeting 5% of demand for the first time and smashing the previous record by more than 1 GW.  

“The future is here!” former FERC Chair Pat Wood, now Hunt Energy Network’s CEO, said on social media. 

The old mark came Sept. 6 when ESRs provided 2,172 MW of energy after a voltage drop forced ERCOT into emergency operations for the first time since Winter Storm Uri. (See ERCOT Voltage Drop Leads to EEA Level 2.) 

ERCOT began the year with 3.3 GW of storage capacity. That is expected to double by the end of the year, but an additional 145 GW of storage capacity is in the interconnection queue. 

The ISO had issued a weather watch for the day because of “unseasonably” high temperatures, high levels of expected maintenance outages and the potential for lower reserves. Weather watches are not calls for conservation, ERCOT says. 

The heat index at DFW Airport reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The grid operator’s May resource adequacy forecast, distributed in March, assumed 14.7 GW of thermal assets would be offline during the month. Instead, 24.7 GW of the resources were offline May 8, according to the ERCOT dashboard. The same forecast also predicted 2 GW of energy storage availability. 

Peak load averaged 68.9 GW during the hour ending at 5 p.m. ERCOT’s record is 85.5 GW, set last August. 

Prices neared their $5,000 cap during the interval ending at 8:15 p.m. 

ERCOT on May 3 issued a request for proposal for 500 MW of demand response, primarily in the San Antonio area. The grid operator has established a generic transmission constraint south of the city to address power flow limitations over transmission lines. 

The RFP was issued May 8.