For the second time this week, ERCOT asked Texans to voluntarily conserve electricity on Wednesday due to a projected electricity shortage that could have led to an energy emergency.
In an operational message issued late Wednesday morning, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency that manages the state's power grid, asked the media to share a request that Texans voluntarily conserve energy between the hours of 2 p.m. and 9 p.m.
ERCOT said record high demand Wednesday due to the ongoing heatwave paired with historically low wind generation, cloud cover over solar farms and forced outages at thermal generation facilities led to Wednesday's call for conservation.
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On Sunday, ERCOT asked Texans to conserve power on Monday afternoon also due to a projected shortage. ERCOT said later that afternoon that Texans responded and shed 500MW of demand during the conservation period. On Monday night, ERCOT issued a notice that extremely hot weather this week could lead to further calls for conservation and necessary action to protect the grid.
In a subsequent operational message Wednesday afternoon, ERCOT issued a Watch for a projected reserve capacity shortage with no market solution available which puts them at risk for an Energy Emergency Event. ERCOT added Wednesday that no system-wide outages were expected.
After the conservation call ended, no outages had been reported.
During an Energy Emergency Event, controlled outages are possible should available supply not be sufficient to meet the demand and to prevent any uncontrolled system-wide outage. Read more about ERCOT's warning system here.
