A week of triple digit heat has Texans turning up the air conditioners.
The people who operate the electric grid for most of the state reported a record demand on Wednesday.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT), said Texans used 63,594 megawatts between 4 and 5 p.m., exceeding the previous record of 63,400 MW, recorded on July 13, 2009.
One megawatt is roughly enough electricity to power 500 average homes under normal conditions in Texas, or about 200 homes during hot weather when air conditioners are running for longer periods of time.
ERCOT operators say they have no concern about the possibility of outages. “ERCOT system operators and the region’s transmission and generation owners operated smoothly...without any major issues,” said CEO Trip Doggett.
ERCOT reported the region has enough generation to cover an expected summer peak demand over 64,000 megawatts and still maintain a 21 percent cushion of reserves to cover unexpected major outages.
