The Energy Reliability Council of Texas, the state's electric grid manager, is urging people to conserve electricity from 2-8 p.m. today.
With high temperatures forecast across the state, ERCOT expects demand to peak between those hours — possibly leading to rolling blackouts.
The Kerrville Public Utility Board is also reminding its customers to conserve.
Conservation is a reliability tool ERCOT has deployed more than four dozen times since 2008 to manage grid operations successfully. This notification is issued when projected reserves may fall below 2300 MW for 30 minutes or more.
ERCOT said there are two main factors in the alerts:
- Record high electric demand. The heat wave that has settled on Texas and much of the central United States is driving increased electric use. Due to the heatwave, other grid operators are operating under similar conservative operations programs as ERCOT.
- Low wind. While solar power is generally reaching near-full generation capacity, wind generation is generating significantly less than what it historically generated in this period. Current projections show wind generation coming in less than 10 percent of its capacity.
