Could We Have Rolling Brownouts This Summer in West Texas?

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The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Monday asked Texans to reduce their electricity consumption through the end of the work week. ERCOT says there are a significant number of power plants offline, and they are expecting record use in June.

According to a press release from ERCOT, the outages are not the norm for this time of year.

"We will be conducting a thorough analysis with generation owners to determine why so many units are out of service," said ERCOT Vice President of Grid Planning and Operations Woody Rickerson. "This is unusual for this early in the summer season."

Officials believe the number of outages will get lower throughout the week.

Wind power output is also running lower than expected this week according to the release, although they expect power to increase as the week continues.

So this news begs the question, should we expect rolling brown outs as we experienced back in February in West Texas and through out the state when the state's electric grid was overburdened?

Now that the summer season is here, does Texas have enough reserves to address the high demand for power? Regulations for other power grids across the country require a 15% reserve, currently Texas does not require reserves.

In the mean time, ERCOT is recommending you take these actions to reduce power use this week.

• Set your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher – every degree of cooling increases your energy use by six to eight percent.
• Turn off lights and pool pumps and avoid using large appliances like ovens, washing machines and dryers.
• If you don’t need something – we are asking you to turn it off and unplug it if possible.

So, what do you think? Could we be experiencing rolling brown outs in the summer like we did in the winter? Tell us on Facebook or chat with us on our station app.