(The Center Square) – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is requesting reduced use of electricity because of extreme temperatures and forecasted record demand.
This Voluntary Conservation Notice is in effect Tuesday, June 20, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. CT.
ERCOT is requesting all government agencies, city and county offices included, to implement all programs to reduce energy use at their facilities.
The Voluntary Conservation Notice is part of ERCOT’s Texas Advisory and Notification System, known as TXANS, alerting the public of grid conditions.
“ERCOT is not experiencing emergency conditions,” according to a June 20 news release.
“Voluntary conservation is a widely used industry tool that can help lower demand for a specific period of peak demand time, which is typically late afternoon into the evening hours.”
On June 19, ERCOT broke the June peak demand record, unofficially, with 79,304 MW.
ERCOT is using reserve power, calling upon reductions by large electric customers that have volunteered to lower their energy use, and bringing more generation online sooner in order to manage the grid reliably.
The utility manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, representing about 90% of the state’s electric load.
If an outage occurs, it is local in nature and not related to overall grid reliability, according to the news release.
Sign up for TXANS notifications here.
Energy-saving tips can be found here.
This article First appeared in the center square