The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has issued a weather watch for September 6-8 “due to expected higher temperatures, higher electricity demand and the potential for lower reserves.”
“Grid conditions are expected to be normal during a weather watch,” ERCOT said in a statement posted on its website.
“ERCOT continues to monitor conditions closely and will deploy all available tools to manage the grid, continuing a reliability-first operations approach. There is currently sufficient capacity to meet anticipated demand,” ERCOT added.
In the statement, ERCOT noted that a weather watch is an advance notification of significant weather expected with increased electric demand and the potential for lower reserves. There is no current expectation of an energy emergency and there is no need to act, the organization emphasized in the statement.
ERCOT noted in the statement that it set a new September peak demand record of 78,459 megawatts (MW) on Sept. 4, “surpassing the previous September peak of 72,370 MW set on Sept. 1, 2021.”
The current peak demand record of 85,435 MW was set on August 10, ERCOT noted in the statement, adding that this summer, the organization set 10 new all-time peak demand records. Last year, ERCOT set 11 new peak demand records, surpassing 80 GW for the first time, the organization said in the statement.
ERCOT, which announced a “Strategic reorganization of leadership” last week, recently announced a series of conservation petitions. These occurred on August 30, August 29, August 27, August 26, August 25 and August 24, according to the organization’s site.
When Rigzone asked ERCOT if it sees more conservation requests coming this summer, an ERCOT spokesperson said, “ERCOT continues to monitor conditions and will provide updates as needed through our communication channels.”
ERCOT also sent Rigzone an overview of “implemented improvements that make the grid more reliable.” These include a new auxiliary service (ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service), air conditioning and inspections, a firm fuel supply service, a scheduled maintenance period, a frequency rapid response service, reliability unit commitments, a critical supply chain and a map of critical infrastructure and improved communications. , highlighted ERCOT.
The last weather watch ERCOT issued was Aug. 21 for Aug. 23-27 “due to higher expected temperatures, higher electric demand and the potential for lower reserves.”
At the time of writing, ERCOT’s site shows grid conditions as “normal” and notes that “there is sufficient power for current demand.”
ERCOT manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, who account for about 90 percent of the state’s electric load, ERCOT notes on its website.
“As the region’s independent system operator, ERCOT schedules power into an electric grid that connects more than 52,700 miles of transmission lines and 1,100 generating units, including private-use grids,” the site states.
“It also carries out financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk energy market and administers the retail switching of eight million premises in competitive choice areas,” he adds.
ERCOT is a 501(c)(4) membership-based nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Texas Legislature.
PUCT regulates the state’s electric, telecommunications, and water and sewer utilities, implements respective legislation and provides customer assistance in resolving consumer complaints, according to the organization’s website.
At the time of writing, PUCT’s website shows network conditions as “normal”.
The Texas network is more reliable and resilient than everan ERCOT spokesperson told Rigzone last December, adding that this was due “to the reliability reforms that ERCOT and the PUCT have implemented over the past year and a half, including the necessary winterization of the generation fleet and a firm fuel supply service by a series of generators”.
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