With a forecasted cold weather front on the rise this week, Gov. Greg Abbott joined multiple government officials today (Feb. 1) to issue a statement of confidence in Texas’ grid strength.
This comes as the state expects severe winter weather this week. In a report by ABC 13, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said it is anticipating high demand for energy from Wednesday, Feb. 2 through Saturday, Feb. 5.
“ERCOT will deploy all the tools available to us to manage the grid effectively during this winter weather,” officials said in a statement to ABC 13.
While preparation is at a high, the cold is not expected to be as severe nor last as long as the winter storm that hit the state last February, leaving many without power in the cold.
Officials have spent the last year making improvements to the state’s power grid, after a failure last year left more than 200 across the state dead, though ABC 13 reports it could take another year or two for all work to be completed.
“We are coordinating closely with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the Public Utility Commission and elected officials – as well as electric generators and transmission and distribution utilities – to keep Texans informed throughout the week. We have ordered power plants across the region to postpone planned outages and to return from outages already in progress,” the statement said.
During his briefing Tuesday, Feb. 1, Abbott said during the course of the winter storm, officials are expecting the highest demand from the power grid on Friday morning.
“Today, right now, ERCOT says they will have an excess 15,000 megawatts of power available even at the time of highest demand,” Abbott said in the briefing. “So, ERCOT is well prepared for conditions as they currently stand but remains flexible in order to be responsive to power demand needs.”
Abbott noted during the briefing the power outages are still possible, but not necessarily because of the grid.
“People may lose power,” he said. “It could be that power lines are down. Power lines run by the company that customers enter into contracts with. Those power lines could go down because a tree falls on the power lines and the power lines are no longer, at that particular time, able to deliver power to a home.”
Officials joined Abbott from the Texas Division of Emergency Management, ERCOT, Public Utility Commission of Texas, Railroad Commission of Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Military Department, Texas A&M Forest Service, Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
