Texas Faces New Power Crisis: Prices Soar 10,000% As ERCOT Urges Power Conservation Amid Grid ‘Emergency’
Texas’ power grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which came under immense pressure months ago for mishandling the historic winter storm in mid-February, urged customers Tuesday afternoon to “reduce their electricity use” as a cold front swept through, causing power demand to spike.
ERCOT told customers to please “conserve energy at this time. Consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use this afternoon and into the evening.”
Texas’ power grid operator also said:
“Due to a combination of high gen outages typical in April & higher-than-forecasted demand caused by a stalled cold front over TX, ERCOT may enter emergency conditions.
With a cold front moving through the Lone Star state some generation units were already down for repair work. Bloomberg reports one spot price for Texas power jumped as much as 10,000% on Tuesday.
In particular, the average spot on-peak electricity at Ercot’s North Hub jumped more than 10,000% to $1,975.96 a megawatt-hour as of 4 p.m, according to grid data compiled by Genscape. Prices are capped at $2,000 a megawatt hour, after regulators suspended the previous $9,000 cap following the energy crisis.
The grid has seen tight supply conditions as below-average temperatures pour into the state this week.
So far, “We do not expect customer outages. Declaring an emergency would allow us to access additional resources,” ERCOT said, although it requested energy conservation.
ERCOT is requesting energy conservation at this time. Consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use this afternoon and into the evening.
— ERCOT (@ERCOT_ISO) April 13, 2021
The internet was not enthused by ERCOT’s grid warning today:
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