Texas grid avoids summer blackouts with $1 billion in extra spending
August 25, 2022
Texas’ electric grid operator has powered through record demand this summer by paying more to keep higher reserves and rewarding industrial consumers to cut usage, a combination that has added more than $1 billion to power fees.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has set new demand records 11 times this summer and twice asked consumers to turn up their thermostats in a season where demand approached 80,000 megawatts (MW). It had forecast peak summer demand earlier this year of 77,733 MW in January.
