Texas Grid Expected to Meet Winter Demands This Year, Officials Say

A woman walks through falling snow in San Antonio on Feb. 14, 2021. Eric Gay/AP Photo

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said it expects the state’s power grid will meet demands assuming typical winter conditions.

ERCOT’s forecast peak demand is 67,398 megawatts (MW) during the winter season of December 2022 through February 2023, according to its Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy report released on Tuesday (pdf). The estimate is based on average weather conditions at the time of peak demands in the winters of 2007 through 2021.

State regulators and ERCOT have been working on adding resources to bolster supply after a February 2021 storm left more than 4.5 million Texans without power and led to 246 deaths.

The upcoming winter’s peak demand base increased by 5,000 MW over the previous year but falls short of the 76,819 MW peak demand reached on Feb. 16, 2021 (pdf). In an extreme scenario similar to 2021, the state’s grid could end up 9,000 MW in the red.

Still, ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas maintains confidence in the reliability of the grid’s power supply.

“We are in a position where the elements that are within our control related to the reliability and operation of the grid are as strong as they’ve ever been,” Vegas told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday to discuss the grid’s readiness.

Power demand is growing across the state with the high influx of new residents.

“Texas is adding a city the size of Corpus Christi every single year in population, and the associated economic growth that comes with that is driving increased usage on the grid,” he continued. Corpus Christi has an estimated population of 320,000.

If peak demand should reach winter 2021 levels, ERCOT would likely ask consumers to conserve electricity and prepare for possible outages.

‘Better Prepared Than Ever’

Chairman Peter Lake of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, who was also on-hand at the briefing, said new rules and reforms have proven effective in preventing power outages over the past 18 months.

“We’ve put even stricter weatherization standards in place this fall. ERCOT will continue to inspect and increase its inspections of generators,” Lake said. “And importantly, for the first time ever, ERCOT has developed and implemented a new firm fuel product that guarantees that we have 3,000, almost 3,000 MW of firm fuel supplies to bolster and enhance our grid going into this winter.”

“We’re better prepared than ever,” he added.

Vegas also pointed out that some elements are out of ERCOT’s control, such as when generation supplies are built, and the speed of demand has a significant impact on the reliability of the grid.

Focusing on the Public Utility Commission’s Phase 2 Market Redesign work and making sure it proceeds rapidly is important in mitigating risks in the future, he explained.

“Let me be clear that the actions we’ve taken over this last year and a half position us as best as we have been to operate the grid reliably, and we expect through the forecast and the likely scenarios that we’ll see over the course of this winter that we’ll have enough supply to meet the reliability needs across the grid,” Vegas said.

The Public Utility Commission’s market redesign proposal (pdf), released earlier this month, is still in the public comment phase. It is expected to be presented during the state’s 2023 legislative session in January.