Power demand in the U.S. Central region hit a record on Friday and is expected to break that record on Tuesday, as homes and businesses keep the air conditioning cranked up in the lingering heatwave.
The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) operates in the Central U.S. Its member companies coordinate the flow of electricity across approximately 60,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines spanning 14 states.
While the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) serves most of the state’s power customers, in the Texas Panhandle, ERCOT only manages the electrical grid in three counties, Briscoe, Hall, and Childress.
The other 23 counties are under the management of the Southwest Power Pool Corporation (SPP). However, ERCOT is urging its consumers to conserve energy to help avoid taking bigger actions to reduce usage, including rotating outages.
SPP, like ERCOT, has asked its members to postpone maintenance on some critical equipment like power lines and generating plants, a common step grid operators take to ensure resources will be available during times of high demand.
System operators have been warning in recent weeks that the electric grid reliability could be at risk amid high summer demand and possible supply reductions. As early as in the middle of May, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned that “extreme weather heightens reliability risks this summer”.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) report last week that U.S. power consumption was on track to rise to record highs in 2022 and 2023, as the economy grows.
According to the report, the largest increases in U.S. electricity generation in the forecast come from renewable energy sources, mostly solar and wind. The EIA expects renewable sources will provide 22% of U.S. generation in 2022 and 24% in 2023, up from a share of 20% in 2021.
The statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy projected power demand will climb to 4,022 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2022 and 4,045 billion kWh in 2023 from 3,930 billion kWh in 2021.
That compares with an eight-year low of 3,856 billion kWh in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic depressed demand, and an all-time high of 4,003 billion kWh in 2018.
Extreme weather, strained grids, and insufficient readily available transformers and other equipment spell trouble for utilities and system operators all across the country. Just remember this when you crank up that air conditioning.
