Texas power grid: ERCOT issues conservation appeal for Thursday, Sept. 7
HOUSTON - ERCOT is asking Texas residents and businesses to conserve electricity use, if safe to do so, on Thursday evening.
The conservation appeal has been issued from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday.
"Due to continued high temperatures, high demand, low wind, and declining solar power generation this afternoon, operating reserves are expected to be low into the afternoon and evening hours," ERCOT wrote in a news release.
ERCOT says the conservation appeal doesn’t indicate that ERCOT is experiencing emergency conditions at this time.
ERCOT is asking all government agencies to implement programs to reduce energy use at their facilities.
ERCOT says they are also using additional tools to manage the grid reliability including using reserve power, calling on large electric customers that have volunteered to lower their usage, bringing more generation online sooner, and working with out-of-state Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Market Participants to get more power generation capacity.
ERCOT says they have also obtained Texas Commission on Environmental Quality enforcement discretion, allowing a generator to extend its operations to help meet demand if needed and maintain grid reliability.
ERCOT says they are also requesting an order from the Department of Energy that would allow generating units within the ERCOT interconnection to operate up to their maximum generation output levels if needed and promptly respond if conditions warranted.
PREVIOUS: ERCOT issues Energy Emergency Alert 2 on Wednesday evening
The conservation appeal comes a day after ERCOT issued an Energy Emergency Alert around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday due to low power reserves.
They asked the public to reduce electricity use and have a plan in case outages became necessary. However, ERCOT says they were able to move out of emergency operations by 8:40 p.m. without outages.
Texans can see grid conditions and forecasts on the ERCOT dashboard.