NBC 5 Senior Investigative Reporter Scott Friedman provides an update on the state of the Texas power grid and ERCOT’s reported usage Thursday morning.
As portions of North Texas are under a Winter Storm Warning, ERCOT has issued a notice saying it anticipates "tight grid conditions" until Friday and requested the TCEQ use discretion if generators exceed air permit limitations to help meet demand.
When the notice was issued Wednesday night, ERCOT showed a reserve of about 3,800 MW and a "Quick Start" capacity of an additional 2,300 MW that could come online within 10 minutes if needed.
An energy industry source briefed on the situation told NBC 5, the tightest spot is expected to be around 8 a.m. Thursday when people use more power as they wake up and when wind generation is lower and not expected to return until later in the morning. According to ERCOT's online dashboard, the demand continued to increase after 9 a.m. with roughly 4,100 MW in reserve power.
Currently, ERCOT still projects it will have plenty of reserve power to call in if needed.
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The notice issued by ERCOT Wednesday night stated, "To ensure all possible generation is available to serve system demand, ERCOT has requested that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) exercise its enforcement discretion with respect to generator exceedances of TCEQ air permit limitations."
While the notice is in place, power providers will more likely get forgiveness should they violate any environmental regulations to help meet demand.
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At this time, ERCOT has not issued any alerts asking people to conserve. But the wind has died down significantly, leaving the state with less wind energy on the grid into Thursday morning.
A spokesperson for ERCOT issued a statement to NBC DFW saying "Our forecast shows there is sufficient generation to meet expected demand and we continue to inform the market and others of evolving weather conditions. Out of an abundance of caution, ERCOT requested enforcement discretion earlier today so that no generation units become unavailable due to environmental limits. We will continue our aggressive approach to meet the energy needs of Texas."
