HOUSTON — People who have lived in Houston for a while expect hot summers, but this one has been next level.
Now, the head of ERCOT has admitted to a Houston newspaper they did not expect it to be as hot as it is.
The power grid operator has a chart online that shows projected supply and demand in real time.
Look at later on Wednesday, the blue dotted line that represents demand is neck and neck – even passes – the purple supply line between 1:30 and 11 p.m.
It’s been like this all week.
In that interview, ERCOT Interim CEO Brad Jones says he is concerned about some of the state's older power generators keeping up with the record demand for power this summer.
Jones said the extreme heat scenario for this summer estimated that demand could reach above 81,000 megawatts, which was the original forecast for Monday. Originally, forecasters gave that a 5 percent chance of happening, according to Jones.
"The 81,500 (megawatts) was the extreme, but those numbers are in the system. We just start with what we think the expected case is, and in early May, the expected case was 77,500" megawatts, he said.
But he’s hopeful that they’ll be able to keep everyone’s lights on.
So far, there haven’t been significant outages. ERCOT says one reason is because requests for people to conserve energy have worked.
KHOU 11 News has received several questions from viewers asking if big companies that use the most power are required to conserve energy when there’s a threat of outages in the state.
The answer is no. It’s optional for businesses just like the rest of us.
ERCOT says it hopes big businesses comply with requests.
As of this morning, the grid operator has not called for anyone to conserve energy the rest of the week.