During our bout of cold weather in January, Texas set new winter peaks for power usage. Power usage came in at 78,138 MW on January 16, 2024. The previous winter peak was 65,915 MW set on January 17, 2018. We also broke the existing record on January 14, at 70,982 MW, and then again on January 15, at 76,340 MW. The all-time high record usage was recorded on August 10, 2023, with 85,508 MW of power used.
Many have asked authorities why, if the grid was able to be maintained, were there so many requests for conservation.
Pablo Vegas, head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), recognized that people were getting tired of conservation requests in a virtual event hosted by the United States Energy Association in December. Vegas said the 11 conservation alerts ERCOT issued in 2023 resulted in people conserving energy, “but we also got some pretty significant feedback that people were getting pretty weary of those calls.”
ERCOT issues voluntary calls for conservation when the amount of energy reserves on the Texas power grid shrinks to a level that the grid operator finds uncomfortably small. “Energy Emergency” declarations can be avoided with voluntary conservation. Emergency declarations carry with them interventions in grid operations and the energy market to balance supply and demand on the grid. When ERCOT has to intervene, it can drive up the prices. Interventions can include paying big power users a lot of money to curtail their usage to make more power available for everyone else.