ERCOT issues Weather Watch for next week; freezing temperatures forecasted
ERCOT has issued a Weather Watch for multiple days next week.
The Texas power grid operator said it will be monitoring conditions closely Monday, Jan. 15, through Wednesday, Jan. 17.
That's when an arctic cold front is expected to move through the area, dropping low temperatures into the teens, and possibly even the single digits.
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Some will remember we had quite of few of these Weather Watches over the summer, but only once did conditions get tight.
In addition to improvements made to the grid, the forecast isn’t as daunting, but it bears watching for any changes.
A mild start to our Texas winter os about to take a turn.
ERCOT said the cold weather will bring higher electrical demand and the potential for lower reserves.
"Grid conditions are expected to be normal during an ERCOT Weather Watch," the grid operator said in the release.
The current all-time peak record demand was 85,508 MW on August 10, 2023, according to ERCOT.
The peak demand for energy in January 2023 was 65,632 MW.
"It looks like the entire state of Texas is going to get pretty cold," said Dr. Joshua Rhodes, who is a research scientist at the University of Texas with expertise in power grids.
He said the forecasted wind, clear skies, and improvements in battery storage lead him to believe we should not have issues with the grid.
"If you just look at the buffer between, we've got thousands of megawatts of expected capacity that we…to be on the system at that time that we won't actually need at that time, even though we are going to peak. So I'm feeling pretty good about it," he explained.
The forecast is also notably different than the 2021 freeze, also known as Winter Storm Uri, which crippled the grid and left more than 240 dead statewide.
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That storm brought widespread freezing rain and snow, and also saw every county in the state under a Winter Storm Warning.
"Some of the far south, and kind of along the coast, that are not going to get as cold as kind of those in the interior and the northern parts of the state," Dr. Rhodes said. "And so that will help out demand for the entire state. And it's just generally going to, even though it's going to be cold outside, it's generally going to be about 10 to 12 degrees warmer across the entire state than it was during Uri."
In the deadly freeze of 2021, much of the power equipment in the state had not been winterized, leading to rolling blackouts.
In the years that follow, new measures have been put in place in an attempt to prevent similar issues.
ERCOT said winter weatherization inspections started during the first week of December and will continue through February.
ERCOT seeks more capacity to avoid winter shortages
ERCOT says it wants to be prepared if demand is elevated this winter, especially with the growth in Texas and some existing power sources being phased out.
Going into this winter, an ERCOT report showed a storm like last December’s, or 2021’s, could lead to a one in six chance of rolling outages in January.
ERCOT said it does expect grid conditions to remain normal next week, but that could depend on how much the forecast changes.
"If it gets colder or is wetter, or, you know, the wind doesn't blow as hard as we're expecting it to, then, that could put us in a little bit of a tighter situation, but currently, things are looking pretty good," Dr. Rhodes said.
ERCOT did not agree to an on-camera interview Wednesday to discuss its thinking on what we’ll see, but officials always remind people in situations like this that if you lose power, it might not be the grid, it might a branch fell on a power line and it’s just a local outage.
ERCOT Weather Watch
An ERCOT Weather Watch is an advanced notification of when higher than usual demand and there is potential for lower reserves.
A Weather Watch is the first of four alerts issued by ERCOT.
A Voluntary Conservation notice is issued when higher demand is forecasted with lower energy supply.
A Conservation Appeal is issued when the electrical demand is forecast to possibly enter emergency operations due to lower reserves.
An Energy Emergency Alert is issued when extra resources are needed due to low energy reserves. There are three levels of EEA, with controlled outages coming after hitting Level 3.