Forecast – Rolling Brown Outs

According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), electricity outages in Texas could occur this winter if the state experiences a cold snap that forces many power plants offline at the same time as power demand is high. There are five extreme scenarios. First, the grid operator estimates customer demands and production expectations ahead of the season. Power grids must keep supply and demand in balance at all times. Then there is high power demand, extensive natural gas and other fossil fuel outages, and deficient renewable power production. For two days last February, Texas averaged 34,000 megawatts of outages. ERCOT’s seasonal assessment for this winter estimates, in the worst-case scenario, could have only about 10,000 to 19,000 megawatts of total outages at any one time, assuming better preparation by power plants for this winter as opposed to last.