By Scott DiSavino
(Reuters) – Energy use in Texas will likely break records for the month of May next week as homes and businesses turn on their air conditioners to escape a spring heat wave, the power grid operator has projected of the state this Friday.
This heat will come after severe storms hit the Houston area with hurricane-force winds on Thursday, killing at least four people, ripping out windows from tall buildings and leaving about 800,000 homes and businesses without power while much of the city was submerged. darkness.
The extreme weather in Texas is reminiscent of the February 2021 freeze that left millions of people without power, water and heat for days and resulted in more than 200 deaths as the state’s grid operator struggled to prevent the power system from collapsing.
That grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), predicted that electrical demand would increase from 57,486 megawatts (MW) on Friday to 71,893 MW on May 20, 72,725 MW on May 21, and 74,346 MW on May 24th.
Next week’s peaks would surpass the current record for the month of May of 71,645 MW set in 2022, according to ERCOT. The grid’s historic peak was 85,508 MW on August 10, 2023.
Analysts expect ERCOT electricity use to surpass that historic peak this summer, as economic and population growth in Texas and demand for power from data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency mining increase rapidly.
One megawatt can typically power about 800 homes on a typical day, but only 200 homes on a hot Texas day.
High temperatures in Houston, Texas’ largest city, will jump from 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27.8 Celsius) on Friday to 90 degrees Celsius between May 18 and May 29, according to meteorologists at AccuWeather. The normal high in Houston this time of year is 86 F.
Earlier this week, when the weather was forecast to be even hotter over the weekend, ERCOT warned of a “possible future emergency condition of reserve capacity deficiency” on Friday and Saturday.
With less heat expected this weekend following severe storms that reduced power demand by disrupting service to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, ERCOT said Thursday it no longer sees a need to seek additional capacity Friday. and on Saturday.
In the spot market, day-ahead power prices at ERCOT North Hub, which includes Dallas, soared to a one-week high of $120 per megawatt-hour (MWh) on Friday, up from $40 on Thursday. on Friday, according to price data at LSEG Terminal.
This compares to an average of US$30 per MWh so far this year, US$80 in 2023 and US$66 in the previous five years (2018-2022).
Meanwhile, day-ahead prices on ERCOT’s website spiked to $688 per MWh for an hour on Friday night.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
