Some areas experience outages as Texas power grid enters third emergency alert stage

One day after record-breaking energy use across the state of Texas, managers of the state’s power grid placed the system into an emergency alert stage.

Early Monday morning, ERCOT declared an “energy emergency alert three” also called an EEA 3, as the third of three alert phases. In the first phase, the state looks to get electricity from other grids. The second stage shuts down large industrial users who’ve agreed to cut power in an emergency. The third phase is rotating outages.

ERCOT has issued an EEA level 3 because electric demand is very high and supplies can’t keep up. Reserves have dropped below 1,000 MW and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes.

Outages typically last anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour. The rolling blackouts could repeat, all the way through Tuesday morning according to ERCOT officials.

Electricity use Sunday night shattered a previous record set in 2018 as extreme cold weather and frozen precipitation blanketed the entire state, crippled transportation and put most of the state below freezing.

The last time the state had to implement rolling outages was in 2011 when another major storm brought cold, ice and snow as far south as the Rio Grande Valley.

The 2021 storm is poised to bring even colder temperatures to the Lone Star State for a longer period of time.

The CEO of Texas’ Electric Reliability Council of Texas, better known as ERCOT, announced Sunday that the supply of natural gas to power plants was limited, and half of the system’s wind turbines had frozen, keeping at least 12k megawatts offline. ERCOT has a grid condition alert system that is now in ‘conservation alert’ status as consumption spikes across the state.

Rolling blackouts are expected across the entire state. Experts say they are necessary to avoid turning off power to places like hospitals, police stations, fire stations, water and wastewater treatment facilities.

ERCOT in 2011 had to cut power to at least a million Texas homes during a record-breaking cold snap that year.
The similarities to the two situations are hard to miss: Both systems brought significantly colder temperatures, left roads unpassable with ice and snow, and led to some power facilities going offline due to the cold, leaving the state without enough power. In 2011, the state imported power from Mexico, according to ABC13 reporting at the time.

ERCOT officials said that lowering heaters to 68 degrees, closing shades to help keep heat in, and turning off non-essential appliances and lights can help conserve energy during the cold.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday warned that all of Texas faces an unprecedented winter storm and issued a state disaster declaration. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts