Forbes Piece: The Texas Electric Grid is Tired

HOUSTON, TEXAS - JUNE 10: Service technicians work to install transmission towers at the CenterPoint Energy power plant on June 10, 2022 in Houston, Texas. Power demand in Texas set new all-time highs this summer amid ongoing heatwaves an a statewide drought. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has been forced to issue conservation notices many days throughout August and into September. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

[Note: This story is also published at Forbes.com]

With at least another week of unusually hot summer weather to come, the Texas electric grid is “tired.” That was the assessment of Rob Allerman, senior director of power analytics at Enverus when I spoke to him recently.

“We're all tired of the heat here in Texas, and the grid's tired, too,” Allerman says. “We're seeing more and more outages, and that just makes sense, right? We've been hot since May, and so the units have been running constantly, and some of those units are quite old. And so, things just start to wear down and break.”

Texas grid managers at ERCOT have been having to work constantly themselves day after day to keep lights and air conditioners running across the state as demand has risen to record levels, well above anything they’ve had accommodate in the past. ERCOT officials have been forced to issue requests for conservation measures by consumers most days since early August, and with high temperatures forecast to be well in excess of 100 degrees for this first full week in September, are likely to have to put out more such requests in the coming days.