A sign on the barbed-wire fence of the Denton Municipal Electric substation on Bonnie Brae warns of high voltage.
DRC file photoThe Electric Reliability Council of Texas is asking Texans to voluntarily reduce electricity use due to extreme temperatures and forecasted record demand today from 4 to 8 p.m.
Voluntary conservation is a widely used industry tool that can help lower demand for a specific period of peak demand time, typically late afternoon into the evening hours.
ERCOT has requested all government agencies, including city and county offices, to implement all programs to reduce energy use at their facilities.
Denton Energy Center, one of the largest natural gas-fired power plants in the country, will comply with the request, Terrance Naulty, assistant general manager of Denton Municipal Electric, said.
Naulty said Monday's peak reached a demand of 358 megawatts, which isn't far off from its all-time peak of 383 MW.
He expects Tuesday's demand to be around the same as Monday's, but likely less.
“We're not expecting today to be as quite the same demand as we saw yesterday because the dew point's actually a little bit lower today than it was yesterday,” Naulty said.
According to the news release, ERCOT is not experiencing emergency conditions, but on Monday, ERCOT broke its June peak demand record, unofficially, with 79,304 MW, passing the record set last year of 76,718 MW.
The voluntary conservation notice is part of ERCOT’s Texas Advisory and Notification System alerting the public of grid conditions.
The news release says that last summer, ERCOT set 11 new peak demand records. The current all-time record of 80,148 MW was set on July 20, 2022.
ERCOT only declares an emergency condition when the safety or reliability of the grid is compromised or threatened.
Extended excessive heat warning
Last week, ERCOT issued a weather watch from June 15-21 due to increased temperatures and high demand.
Additionally, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth issued an extended excessive heat warning through Wednesday in Denton County due to dangerously hot conditions with heat index values up to 120 degrees.
Tuesday is expected to be mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 101 and heat index values as high as 115. The weather service forecast for Wednesday is sunny with a high near 96 and heat index up to 107.
ERCOT’s live dashboards offer a snapshot of current conditions in the system that is listed in normal conditions.
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JUAN BETANCOURT can be reached via Twitter at @jbetancourt_15.
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