HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The state’s power grid returned to “normal conditions” after Texas activated “Energy Emergency Alert 2” Wednesday evening, just in the middle of a three-hour call to conserve energy.
At 9 p.m., the scheduled end of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ conservation appeal period, the ERCOT dashboard indicated there was enough power to meet demand at that time.
Earlier in the day, ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas said forecasts indicated possible emergency operations in the evening.
“Continued high temperatures, high demand, weak winds and declining solar power generation are expected to result in low operating reserves for the Texas electric grid this evening,” the Public Utility Commission of Texas announced.
To illustrate how dangerously close demand was to supply capacity, as of 7:35 p.m., ERCOT’s grid health meter showed a committed capacity of 78,634 megawatts, with a demand of 76,698 megawatts, meaning Texas had less than 2,000 megawatts of the Demand was away from exceeding supply.
You can check the network conditions at any time on the ERCOT website.
ERCOT declares energy emergency alerts
When reserves in the system run low, ERCOT begins emergency operations using three levels of Energy Emergency Alerts (EEAs). These levels allow access to additional power sources that are only available in an emergency to protect the reliability of the electrical system. The initiation of emergency operations does not mean that ERCOT expects to require controlled outages that would affect all customer groups, including residential, commercial and industrial customers. Entering emergency operations means ERCOT has access to more energy reserves that help prevent power outages.
An EEA 2 is issued when ERCOT’s operating reserves have fallen below 1,750 MW and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes. Controlled outages have not been requested at this time. However, they could become necessary if demand does not decrease or additional supply cannot be provided by generators.