Enigin Update - Texas Faces Summer Blackouts
THE U.S. State of Texas could face outages next summer unless action, including improving energy efficiency, is taken to allow for more power reserves.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state grid operator and manager of the wholesale electric market, released its biannual assessment for the next 10 years indicating that power reserves – the extra capacity used to avert rotating outages – will likely fall below the minimum target beginning next summer.
The December update of the capacity, demand and reserves report indicates a decrease in available resources by more than 2,600 MW for the summer of 2012 relative to the amount expected in June 2011 for 2012, primarily due to additional announcements to mothball some generation units and several delays in planned generation, as well as a higher load forecast.
Reserve margins are currently projected to be at 12 percent at summer peak season in 2012 and 2013 – below the 13.75 percent target used in the ERCOT region to ensure reliable operation of the grid during higher-than-normal temperatures and generator outages.
“We are very concerned about the significant drop in the reserve margin,” said CEO Trip Doggett. “If we stay in the current cycle of hot and dry summers, we will be very tight on capacity next summer and have a repeat of this year’s emergency procedures and conservation appeals.”
ERCOT is investigating several initiatives to address the capacity shortage for the short-term, said Doggett, adding, “We are working with the Public Utility Commission on several rule changes, including expansion of our emergency demand response program to allow greater participation.
“Due to our concerns about generation adequacy during the record-setting summer temperatures, concerns about the future impact from the drought, and retirements related to new environmental rules, we asked transmission operators to perform a comprehensive review of the current status of each of their assigned generation interconnection projects.
“Given the current economic uncertainties and the uncertainty from proposed environmental regulations, we wanted to ensure that proposed in-service dates were as accurate as possible, based on the currently available information.
“ERCOT’s role in the competitive market is to inform policymakers and the market of the need for increased generation resources, energy efficiency measures, or demand response efforts, but ultimately ERCOT does not control the supply of electricity needed to meet the demands of our growing economy.”
Enigin Distributors in Texas are helping many organisations and businesses to reduce their energy demand through improved energy efficiency by utilizing programs from Enigin.
Picture of Dallas skyline at night from Xvision [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons
