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ERCOT launches new 'TXANS' grid notification system to keep residents updated on Texas' power supply

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Published  May 31, 2023 5:03pm CDT
Sullivan's Smart Sense
FOX 26 Houston

ERCOT announces new communication tool to keep residents updated on Texas' power supply

Texas summer heat is starting to roll in, along with a growing number of new residents from other states. On the heels of this, ERCOT announced it will issue new TXANS notifications on the state's power supply.

HOUSTON - The Electric Reliability Council of Texas known as ERCOT announced a new communications tool to keep you better updated on the state's power supply.

ERCOT launched its new Texas Advisory and Notification System, or TXANS, a website where you can go to get updates or sign up for email notifications.

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Texas summer heat is starting to roll in, along with a growing number of new residents from other states.  

"Last year we set 11 peak demand records and an all-time peak record of over 80 megawatts" explained Pablo Vegas, ERCOT President and CEO. "That’s more than the combined peak records of New York and California combined."

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TXANS will send four grid notifications:  

One states there are "Normal Grid Conditions." Another is called an "ERCOT Weather Watch."

"An ‘ERCOT Weather Watch’ is an advance notification that would be three to five days ahead of significant possible weather of high demand or low power reserves," said Vegas.

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If the supply runs low, ERCOT says it will issue a "Voluntary Conservation Notice," along with suggested ways you can reduce usage.

"A ‘Voluntary Conservation Notice’ is a call for Texans to voluntarily reduce energy usage during peak demand time if it's safe to do so," said Vegas.

And finally, ERCOT will issue an "Energy Emergency Alert" of system-wide emergency supply and demand conditions.  

ERCOT says these notifications will not replace the existing Energy Emergency Alerts sent to an email distribution list, or the 6-Day Supply and Demand Forecast and Fuel Mix dashboards on the ERCOT website.

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In May, ERCOT said there could be brownouts this summer. On Wednesday, Vegas noted that some plants had scheduled maintenance outages during this Spring, avoiding a repeat of the scheduled maintenance outages during last summer's high demand.

"We do believe we have enough resources to operate the grid reliably this summer and still expect that to be the case," he said. "To your point, ‘do we expect many Conservation Notices?’ No, we don’t expect many Conservation Notices."