Texas Soon To Face Rolling Blackouts
ERCOT is in on the edge of calling for rolling blackouts, having called for a Level 2 Emergency where large industrial customers are asked to drop about 1,000 megawatts of demand.
The message issued by Texas’ main grid operator at 2:33 p.m.
RESERVES BELOW 1750 MW. LOAD RESOURCES ARE BEING DEPLOYED. THERE MAY BE A NEED TO IMPLEMENT ROTATING OUTAGES.
If rolling blackouts are used, local grid operators like CenterPoint Energy in the Houston area and Oncor around Dallas and Ft. Worth, will turn off pre-selected circuits for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour in order to avoid a system-wide failure.
Customers won’t get a warning beforehand, but in Houston the areas hit will likely be the same as those affected during the Feb. 2 rolling blackouts. Here is a post we did earlier this year that explains how CenterPoint choses the circuits that go out, including a rough map.
