Texas daily power demand sets record for May consumption

[sl8]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-daily-power-demand-sets-record-may-consumption-2024-05-27/

Texas daily power demand sets record for May consumption

By Reuters
May 26, 2024 10:34 PM EDT Updated 9 hours ago

May 26 (Reuters) - Daily power consumption in Texas set a record for the month of May on Sunday, the state grid operator said, for the fourth time this month, as homes and businesses fire up air conditioners to escape a heat wave.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates most of the state's power grid for 27 million customers, said power demand soared to a preliminary 73,756 megawatts (MW) late on Sunday, which would top the former high for the month of May of 73,749 MW set on Saturday.

Analysts expect electricity consumption will top its all-time high this summer amid economic and population growth in Texas and rising demand for power from data centers, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining. The grid's all-time peak was 85,508 MW on Aug. 10, 2023.

On Friday, ERCOT said the system was operating normally with enough supply available to meet expected demand all week.

[...]

[duncang]

1. We haven't hit summer yet.

Most of the power is back on here in Texas. But there’s still outages. I wonder what it would have been if all the power had been restored?

I don’t trust ERCOT to keep it on this summer. I’m up the line from our city hall and police department so the power is restored fast. Also on one of the lines from the national grid. Not a ERCOT line. Abbott’s choice of people who serve on it has always been screwed up. Before the 2021 freeze here he had installed someone from the botched Flint water crisis in ERCOT. As his hero tfg he only hired the best.

[FBaggins]

2. It wasn't an overall record, just one for the month of May

Peak demand approached 75GW... but ERCOT can produce in the neighborhood of almost 100GW.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand

[catrose]

3. It's been the coolest May I remember. If Ercot can't keep up with that, we're in trouble.

[FBaggins]

4. That may be true of the month overall... it was not true yesterday

TX had a substantial heat wave across the state.

The weather service warning spoke of heat index values up to 115.

And they had no “trouble keeping up”. Record demand for a Spring month comes nowhere close to their peak

[CCExile]

5. This has not been my experience here on the central coast...

"Normally" here the first three weeks of May were quite warm, but pleasantly tolerable. Summer usually didn't start a true bake until mid-June. Last year and this, summer seemed to kick off 3-4 weeks earlier. It's a bummer, because now we bake for 6 months instead of 5. Oh well, at least the humidity is still stifling!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. An Excessive Heat Warning is in effect for the city of Houston

Stay indoors and be careful

Link to tweet

The Houston Ozone level is unhealthy of sensitive groups
https://www.tceq.texas.gov/airquality/monops/forecast_today.html