Electricity demand in Texas hit a historic high on Tuesday as homes and businesses turned on their air conditioners due to the scorching heat.
With much of the state under a heat warning, demand reached 85,559 megawatts late Tuesday afternoon, said a spokesman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, surpassing the previous record of 85,508 megawatts set in August 2023.
No widespread power outages were reported and ERCOT’s dashboard showed the power grid was operating normally and with sufficient capacity. ERCOT forecasts demand will fall below 85,000 megawatts on Wednesday, which will provide some relief.
Texas’ growing population and a growing number of industrial-scale users – such as bitcoin miners and data centers – have increased the strain on the power grid. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said The Dallas Morning News in June that Texas can meet its energy needs, but the state’s electrical infrastructure needs a boost and batteries to meet demand during peak hours.
“We are at the beginning of a new era of growth in Texas and I think we are very well positioned to handle that growth,” Vegas said.
Texas has its own power grid, meaning the state must generate most of the energy it needs to power its residents to keep lights and air conditioning on.
Extreme weather conditions have caused temporary outages in the Texas power grid. Particularly memorable was a winter storm in February 2021 that paralyzed the power grid and left millions of people in the dark and cold for days. More than 200 Texans lost their lives.
Most of Texas’ energy comes from natural gas, but other energy sources, namely solar and wind, have played a critical role in meeting summer demand. In fact, the toughest time for the grid is between 8 and 9 p.m., when the state loses 15,000 to 16,000 megawatts generated by solar power, Vegas previously said. The news.
To compensate for this, ERCOT has begun working closely with battery operators that can store power when it is needed most.
At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, only slightly cooler than Monday, which was the hottest day of the year at 41 degrees Celsius.
Temperatures in North Texas are expected to be around 100 degrees this weekend and into early next week, said Allison Prater, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Highs could drop to above 90 degrees early next week.
