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Cold weather causes surge in demand on Texas’ electric grid
FORT WORTH — The state’s main power grid narrowly avoided outages on Monday after several power plants failed as electricity demand soared in response to the coldest weather in two years.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the power grid that serves most of Texas, briefly issued an Energy Emergency Alert 2 early Monday morning, the last step before rotating power outages would be implemented. ERCOT canceled the warning about possible outages shortly after 9:30 a.m.
But the loss of just one more large power plant could have pushed the grid over the edge, Dan Woodfin, ERCOT director of system operations, told reporters during a conference call. The grid lost two big power plants to weather-related problems and some others to other problems, totaling about 3,700 megawatts of power, Woodfin said.
During that time, the state imported about 800 megawatts from the nation’s eastern power grid and 180 megawatts from Mexico. A megawatt is enough to supply about 200 Texas homes during a period of peak usage and about 500 homes during routine usage.
As the Arctic air settled in across North Texas on Monday morning, temperatures plunged into the teens and wind chills dropped to the single digits.
At Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the low was 15 degrees, the coldest since the ice storm during Super Bowl week in February 2011. On Feb. 2, 2011, the temperature dropped to 13 degrees and on Feb. 10, 2011, it dropped to 15.
FORT WORTH — The state’s main power grid narrowly avoided outages on Monday after several power plants failed as electricity demand soared in response to the coldest weather in two years.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the power grid that serves most of Texas, briefly issued an Energy Emergency Alert 2 early Monday morning, the last step before rotating power outages would be implemented. ERCOT canceled the warning about possible outages shortly after 9:30 a.m.
But the loss of just one more large power plant could have pushed the grid over the edge, Dan Woodfin, ERCOT director of system operations, told reporters during a conference call. The grid lost two big power plants to weather-related problems and some others to other problems, totaling about 3,700 megawatts of power, Woodfin said.
During that time, the state imported about 800 megawatts from the nation’s eastern power grid and 180 megawatts from Mexico. A megawatt is enough to supply about 200 Texas homes during a period of peak usage and about 500 homes during routine usage.
As the Arctic air settled in across North Texas on Monday morning, temperatures plunged into the teens and wind chills dropped to the single digits.
At Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the low was 15 degrees, the coldest since the ice storm during Super Bowl week in February 2011. On Feb. 2, 2011, the temperature dropped to 13 degrees and on Feb. 10, 2011, it dropped to 15.
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