The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) asked consumers to reduce electricity use as much as possible in the period 14 June to 18 June. A significant number of forced generation outages combined with potential record electric use for the month of June has resulted in tight grid conditions.
Generator owners have reported approximately 11 GW of generation is on forced outage for repairs; of that, approximately 8 GW is thermal and the rest is intermittent resources. According to the summer Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy, a typical range of thermal generation outages on hot summer days is around 3600 MW. Typically on a summers day average household demand is about 5 kW.
“We will be conducting a thorough analysis with generation owners to determine why so many units are out of service,” said ERCOT vp of Grid Planning and Operations Woody Rickerson. “This is unusual for this early in the summer season.”
According to generation owners, the number of outages should decrease throughout the week. Wind output at the start of the week was expected to be 3500 to 6000 MW between 3 pm and 9 pm, roughly 1500 MW lower than what is typically available for peak conditions. Wind output is expected to increase as the week goes on.
