LOCAL ECONOMIC SNAPSHOT | ELECTRICITY

Maxing out on power

By ELIZABETH SOUDER
Staff Writer esouder@dallasnews.com

KYLE ALCOTT
Staff Artist kalcott@dallasnews.com

The Texas electricity grid, which is operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, can become strained by extremely cold or hot weather. This year, weve had both. Thats why consumers have been encouraged to conserve electricity, especially during peak usage hours. In the hot summer months, those are between 3 and 7 p.m. Without conservation, Texas came close to experiencing rolling blackouts, in which power is turned off to various neighborhoods for short periods of time.

Snapshot of a grid emergency

The Texas grid came close to rolling outages on Aug. 4. Power generators were only able to meet demand when some industrial and commercial customers shut down. 1:45-4:30 p.m.: Wholesale electricity costs $3,000 per megawatt hour.
80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 1 a.m. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Noon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1:45 p.m.: ERCOT declares a level 1 emergency and calls for conservation.

2:26 p.m. ERCOT moves to a level 2 emergency and calls on some industrial and commercial customers to shut down. They are paid to do so.

6:07 p.m.: ERCOT cancels the emergency.

Monthly peak demand

Demand rises during summer and winter, when people use their air conditioners and heaters the most.
80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J 2009 2010 2011

Retail prices
66,432 The average price for electricity in Texas is now slightly less than the national average after years of being higher. TEXAS US 11.35 cents
16 14 12 10 8

(Cents per kilowatt hour)

11.17 cents

Texas grid demand

Peak demand, or the amount of generation capacity required to meet customer load during the hour of highest demand.
80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
SOURCES: Energy Information Administration; Electric Reliability Council of Texas

79,274

6 4 2 0 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 Note: Prices include customers served by municipal electricity companies and co-ops, and Texas residents who are not served by the states grid.)

Projected

The bottom line

Were not out of the woods. The drought and the extremely hot weather is forecasted to continue throughout the month, so we certainly appreciate all of the efforts of everyone to conserve during those evening hours. Trip Doggett, chief executive, ERCOT You can still do laundry and run your dishwasher, but by doing it at a different time of day. Youre not even using less electricity, just the time of day youre doing it is ensuring the supply of electricity is ample to meet all the needs. Catherine Cuellar, spokeswoman, Oncor Maybe you can afford to use as much electricity as you want. Thats not the issue. If everyone uses too much during an emergency, then the grid could go down, and we all lose power.

Elizabeth Souder, staff writer, The Dallas Morning News