ERCOT issued a Weather Watch, alerting Texans that they anticipate higher electrical demand during an Arctic blast of cold air expected to arrive on Saturday that'll bring extreme cold to the state.
On Monday morning, a Conservation Appeal was issued and that notice has since expired. Another Conservation Appeal was issued for Tuesday morning from 6 a.m. - 9 a.m.
In a post on X, ERCOT said that any outages are local and not related to grid reliability at this time.
The ERCOT Weather Watch was originally issued for Jan. 15-17, Monday through Wednesday. On Friday, the alert was updated to include Sunday due to the cold weather moving in earlier than originally forecast.
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Two cold fronts are expected to arrive in North Texas this week, the first arriving on Friday and a second, an Arctic blast, on Saturday.
The second front is expected to send temperatures well below freezing for a substantial period.
ERCOT's Weather Watch is an advanced notification that is sent out under normal grid conditions about 3-5 days before a weather event to tell the public there may be a higher demand for electricity due to a forecasted event and that they should pay attention to changing conditions.
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Last year, ERCOT announced the launch of the Texas Advisory and Notification System (TXANS) which includes two alerts, the ERCOT Weather Watch and a Voluntary Conservation Notice where Texans will be asked to voluntarily reduce usage during peak times -- if it is safe to do so.
ERCOT, or the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc., is the agency that manages the state's power grid. The agency said Wednesday that January 2023 peak demand was 65,632 MW, with the current all-time peak demand record of 85,508 MW, set on Aug. 10, 2023. ERCOT estimates that 1 MW powers about 200 homes.
