Texas’s main grid operator said it was forced to take emergency measures on Wednesday to avert rolling blackouts amid a heatwave and a lack of power produced by wind turbines because of low winds and poor solar power production.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a conservation appeal for 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday. It comes as Dallas and other cities saw triple-digit temperatures. And in Houston, the largest city in Texas, temperatures hit 101 degrees Wednesday, and highs are expected to remain above 97 degrees into the weekend, says a bulletin from National Weather Service.
“ERCOT is asking Texans and businesses to voluntarily conserve electricity during this time. Currently, no system-wide outages are expected,” said the operator in a news release. “[Wednesday’s] conditions are expected to be similar to those experienced on Monday, July 11, 2022. On that day, Texans and businesses responded by voluntarily conserving electricity and helping ERCOT successfully meet record power demand by reducing their energy use by 500 [megawatts].”…