The Texas power grid operator on Monday forecast demand this week would reach its highest in 2021 as homes and businesses crank up air conditioners to escape another heatwave, Reuters reported.
The United States has seen several extreme weather events this year. In February, a freeze in Texas knocked out power to millions, while this summer has brought a record-breaking heatwave to the Pacific Northwest.
The US National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for Dallas on Monday and Tuesday where high temperatures are expected to reach the upper 90s Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) every day from August 8-14, according to AccuWeather. The city’s normal high is 97 degrees Fahrenheit at this time of year.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates most of the state’s grid, projected power use will reach 73,754MW on Monday, 74,093MW on Tuesday and 74,375MW on Wednesday.
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Those peaks would top this year’s current high of 72,856MW on July 26 but would fall short of the grid’s all-time high of 74,820MW in August 2019. One megawatt can power around 200 homes on a hot summer day.
The extreme weather reminded Texans of the February freeze that left millions without power, water and heat for days during a deadly storm as ERCOT scrambled to prevent an uncontrolled collapse of the grid after an unusually large amount of generation was shut due to freezing natural gas pipelines and wind turbines.
Despite the heat, on-peak power at the ERCOT North hub , which includes Dallas, traded at just $39 per megawatt hour (MWh) for Monday.
That was well below the average of $198/MWh seen so far in 2021 due primarily to price spikes over $8,000 during the February freeze, but was above 2020’s average of $26 and the five-year (2016-2020) average of $33.
