ERCOT warns of potential rolling blackouts in late summer

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DALLAS - The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is warning Texans about possible rolling blackouts this summer.

The state’s power grid operator projects demand will get close to the available supply and could force outages to protect the whole grid.

In a report released this past Friday, ERCOT said there’s up to a 16% chance of an Energy Emergency Alert at some point in August. There’s also a 12% chance Texans will have to be without power in controlled outages.

The risks are highest around 9 p.m. when solar generation drops off, but people are home running their air conditioners.

The estimates were more favorable for June and July.

(Photo by Nick Wagner/Xinhua via Getty Images)

During a Texas House Committee on State Affairs hearing Monday, ERCOT President Pablo Vegas talked about Texas’ population, economy, and industrial growth which the grid must keep up with.

"When you couple all of that together there’s an explosively high electric growth demand picture ahead of us that is really pushing us to rethink how we do planning here at ERCOT," he said.

Mark Bell with the Association of Electric Companies in Texas said its members have been working with ERCOT and other entities on reliability, especially given the state's growth and an active hurricane forecast for this summer.

Texas set a new energy peak demand record this May at over 77,000 megawatts. That’s higher than ERCOT’s all-time August peak demand record, Bell said.

"Demand for electricity in Texas has risen by 25% over the past decade compared to 5% for the nation as a whole, with estimates that it could rise another 51% in the coming decade," he said. "And over the last two summers, Texas has set 21 new all-time peak demand records."

ERCOT is looking into how it could support its need to generate more power with nuclear power, Vegas said.