ERCOT: Friday Conservation Needed to Avoid Outages

SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ The electric grid operator for Texas has escaped having to resort to rotating residential power outages by shedding large industrial and commercial users to abate near-record power demand statewide.

Record and near-record triple-digit high temperatures fueled that demand Thursday.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas had warned Thursday that rotating power outages were probable. But ERCOT’s shedding of large energy users by prior arrangement helped keep peak demand between 4 and 5 p.m. Thursday to no more than 66,815 megawatts.

ERCOT saw a record peak demand of 68,295 megawatts Wednesday afternoon and expected to approach or break that record Thursday.

An ERCOT statement says Texans must still reduce the amount of power they use Friday to avoid rolling residential outages typically lasting 15 to 45 minutes.

For more information: http://www.ercot.com

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

More News