SAN ANTONIO — The Texas power grid has a math problem, and the solution is in the wind.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is directly in charge of the power grid, says Texas could see a power demand of 83,412 Megawatts (MW) this summer. This is the highest amount of power the grid would need to provide at one time at any given point.
If you added together all the power available from every natural gas plant, nuclear plant, and coal plant in the State of Texas, you would only have 73,239 MW. Additionally, a summer-readiness report from ERCOT said they state may only have 65,091 MW available from those sources.
This means that the grid must make up the difference between the predicted demand of 83,412 MW and the reliable 65,091 of generation.
The state has another 4,861 MW from hydro-electric power, battery power, and power from other girds. This means the remaining 12,000+ MW needed would need to come from wind farms and solar arrays.
The problem: Solar power is only available during half the day and the wind is variable.
ERCOT Vice President of Planning and Weatherization Woody Rickerson summarized the issue at a Tuesday Board meeting like this:
"Resource adequacy for high demand days is going to be very dependent on wind. That's just the reality of where we are. Every day we'll have to look at what the wind is doing," Rickerson said.
Rickerson said ERCOT is most concerned about the time frame between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. when solar power is dropping off but wind has still not picked up enough to compensate. This is why ERCOT asked the public to conserve electricity on Tuesday.
You can see the supply and demand curves get close in real time on this ERCOT page.
Fortunately, the grid is expected to have at least 4,000 MW more power available than needed throughout Tuesday. Wind and solar power are combining to provide enough power to get though the day KENS 5 forecasts a similar wind situation though the next few days.
ERCOT could continue to request conservation multiple times this week as the weather remains hot and power demand remains high.