As temperatures in South Texas sit at the freezing level, many people have taken shelter in their homes with the heat on. On Wednesday, CPS Energy said to conserve energy or the state might direct them to do rolling blackouts.
CPS says that, thanks to their customers, the chance of rolling blackouts is unlikely. The last time this area had them was back in February 2011.
CPS issued a notice to customers, warning them to keep their thermostat between 68 and 70 degrees when they're home and to set it lower when they're away. They also encourage people to take short showers during the freezing weather.
"If you have an electric water heater, those are some of the things that are going to lead to high energy use. Also, seal up any air filtration that is coming into your home, whether that's front door or windows. Just seal any cracks or crevices where air can escape or come into your home," John Moreno from CPS Energy said.
They say peak energy usage in the winter is usually between 7 and 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, Texans used more than 65,000 megawatts of energy.
"That is a lot of energy demand," Moreno said. "Part of the reason for that is Texas has a lot of heat pump heaters that run on electric heat, electric water heaters and things of that nature, that's really where a lot of the high energy use comes from."
Texas has a maximum amount of energy available to residents, and if we reach that capacity, the state can issue blackouts which last approximately 15 minutes at a time.
CPS says that because it didn't get windy during the icy weather Tuesday, there weren't too many power outages. 700 customers lost power Tuesday, and they say 4,200 customers had brief outages Monday night.