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Energy providers urge conservative use despite dropping temps
By Kelley Chambers, kchambers@acnpapers.com
With extreme temperatures waning for much of Texas, local gas and electric providers still want their customers to remain diligent when it comes to conserving energy.
"It's always a good idea to conserve if only to help decrease your electric bill," said Dottie Roark, spokesperson for The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
ERCOT spent most of August enforcing emergency alerts and twice rolled into Level 2 warnings, coming close to facing rolling outages like those encountered during February's snow and ice storms. Despite electric usage topping ERCOT's peak demand record from August 2010 three days in a row this past August, the grid operator managed to keep its 23 million users -- or 85 percent of the Texas grid -- safe from blackouts, thanks to careful planning and eyes continuously on its reserves.
"Our control room has to constantly match the supply and demand," Roark said. "In August we had a lot going on, we had a lot higher [demand] than we expected to have. Our summer also really started earlier than usual, as we started breaking records back in May."
Even this past winter managed to push electric providers to the limit, with ERCOT hitting a winter record of reaching a winter record of 57,315-megawatt usage.
"The problem we had in February was unusually extremely cold winter weather combined with a high wind chill," Roark said. "A lot of our generation plants had problems with instrumentation and its control systems."
In light of these energy scares, CoServ Electric President and CEO Michael A. Dreyspring said they are "taking the bull by the horns" by providing free energy audits, conservation advice, rebates for energy efficient upgrades and funding to area social service agencies to ease the sticker shock of high bills during these tough economic times. The not-for-profit cooperative headquartered in Corinth provides electric service to more than 130,000 member-owners across six counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. More information on these services can be found at www.CoServ.com.
However, the real thanks should go to those who have become more conscious of their use and conserved energy during peak usage hours, Dreyspring said. Roark agreed that while they may not be able to assess the exact amount of energy saved overall by flicking a light off, at the bulk level it appeared that consumers were much more mindful of their use, especially during those record-breaking temperature days in August.
"The February and August ERCOT scenarios are prime examples of scarcity in power generation, and let's not forget that Texans don't have to be dripping in sweat or chilled to the bone to experience energy shortages and high bills," Dreyspring said. "Statistics show that power demand will continue to increase, and I believe that generation resources will shrink, hobbling our ability to keep the lights on and costs in check."
With long-range projections reflecting increase in demand, mainly due to population increases, Roark encourages to cut back on energy use no matter what the season. With a 2 percent growth rate projected in Texas, ERCOT has already forecasted a need to double its current capacity by 2030. More current factors are playing a role in this increase as well, Roark said.
"If the drought continues, we could lose some additional generation," she said. "Another uncertainty is the new cross-state air pollution rule that the EPA put out in July. We are not sure what the impact will be, but we could lose 1200 to 1400 megawatts of generation if it is implemented as written."
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