The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization that operates Texas’s electrical grid, claims the Lone Star State should make it through summer without any catastrophic failures.
However, with unusually high temperatures this May, the recent failure of six power plants, and record-high energy demand anticipated this summer, it remains to be seen whether ERCOT can keep that promise — and Texans’ air conditioners running.
ERCOT published its Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy on Monday, March 16. The report claims the state grid is “expected to have sufficient installed generating capacity to serve peak demands in the upcoming summer season, June – September 2022, under normal system conditions and most of the reserve capacity risk scenarios examined.”
Texans on Twitter did not appear reassured by the report.
One person asked if ERCOT was to be trusted after last year’s mass outages.
Why should we trust any “scenarios” from ERCOT, who never considered a scenario of power plant failures during winter storm?
— Prashant Bele (@bprashant09) May 17, 2022
The “winter storm” referenced in the tweet refers to the weather that knocked out millions of Texans’ electricity and water in February 2021. It took more than a week for repair crews to restore power to some communities. At least 246 Texans died due to the storm—as many as two-thirds from hypothermia.
Another Twitter user expressed their disapproval of the conservation requested of Texans to keep the grid running smoothly.
If you don’t have time to read it, basically it says to keep your thermostat at 78 degrees all summer.
— Simon (@simontrose) May 16, 2022
At a press conference held on Tuesday, ERCOT President and CEO Brad Jones spoke frankly about the situation:
“In the past, we would call for conservation at the last moment or even beyond that when we’re already in an emergency condition. Now, we’re moving conservation up early because we know that all Texans can help each other and help the grid to be even stronger.”
Jones was joined by Peter Lake, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, who insisted the “grid is more reliable than it has ever been before.”
