DALLAS — ERCOT is forecasting Texas will blow past its record-high demand for energy this week.
Parts of North Texas, including Fort Worth, hit 100 degrees for the first time this year Sunday, June 11. In the next 10 days, North Texas will likely see seven days where temperatures top 100.
“That extra degree or two of heat is causing that extra thousand megawatts to be needed,” Doug Lewin, author of Texas Energy and Power newsletter, said. “That can be the difference between outages and not.”
Lewin doesn’t expect outages this week or possibly at all this summer, but conservation calls are a possibility.
Headed into summer, record demand for ERCOT is 80,038 MW set July 20 of last year when Texas set records 11 different times.
ERCOT expected peak demand this summer to pass that, hitting 82,739 MW.
Now, in just the second week of June, forecasts as of Sunday evening are for a peak of 82,416 MW at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 16.
“This is going to continue to be a problem. They’re going to continue to under-predict,” Lewin said. “We’re going to have very few years that aren’t extreme years going forward. That’s just the new reality.”
The rise in demand is substantial: 1,000 MW is roughly the capacity needed to power 200,000 homes.
Outages usually happen because of three issues: high demand, unexpected outages and poor performance from wind and solar.
This week, while demand will be high, ERCOT is forecasting around 5,000 MW of outages which is about normal, and Lewin points solar generation should perform extremely well.
“We’re at twice as much solar [capacity] and almost three times as much storage as last summer,” Lewin said. “That is going to make a big difference. It’s one of the reasons why next week isn’t going to be as big an issue.”
Lewin’s long-term concern is a lack of HVAC efficiency and a need for a conservation system that’s more regulated and automatic than simply asking for public help. He also puts the surge in demand on statewide growth along with global warming.
“Every time we break a record, that indicates a failure because we are not implementing energy efficiency solutions,” he said. “We are not implementing demand response solutions.”
With a hot summer possibly ahead, both Texans and the grid could need relief.
“It’s like I tell my kids, ‘focus on the things that you can control’,” he said. “You can’t control the wind, but you can control demand-side, storage, all of these kinds of things.”