Dive Brief:
- Electricity demand is down on the Texas grid for the second month in a row due to cool weather this summer, according to system operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
- Peak demand for the month of July was 63,500 MW. For comparison, the record amount of demand on the ERCOT grid is 68,305 MW, which was set during a heat wave on August 3, 2011.
- June also experienced lower-than expected demand with a peak of 59,786 MW, down from 64,418 MW for the same month last year.
Dive Insight:
ERCOT has met a great deal of its demand this summer through wind power. Wind generation hit a new high of 3.9 million megawatt-hours in June, accounting for 12.4% of power on ERCOT's grid. This is expected to rise further with 8,000 MW of wind projects anticipated to come online by 2017. The grid also has 2,100 MW of new natural gas-fired capacity coming online this summer, widening previously tight reserve margins.
"The mild weather has made it simpler in the early months while we were waiting for the new generation to come online," said Robbie Searcy, spokeswoman for ERCOT. But Searcy warned that there is a month of summer is still to come and demand could still reach high levels on the grid.
