(Bloomberg) -- Texas declared its first power emergency since a deadly winter storm two years ago and came close to rolling blackouts as soaring temperatures roasted the second-largest US state. Most Read from BloombergIndia’s Moment Has Arrived, and Modi Wants a New Global OrderFed Set to Double Its Economic Growth Forecast After Strong US DataStocks Retreat After Hot ISM Fuels Fed-Hike Wagers: Markets WrapSoaring US Dollar Raises Alarm as China, Japan Escalate FX PushbackUS Wants Details on Ma
The declaration of a so-called Level 2 emergency late Wednesday came in response to shrinking supplies of available power and meant the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator, had to draw on reserves while pushing consumers to curb usage.Texas hadn’t experienced a grid emergency since February 2021, when a historic freeze triggered blackouts that led to hundreds of deaths, stranded millions inside freezing homes, and paralyzed the Lone Star State for almost a week.
Conditions deteriorated so quickly on Wednesday that the grid operator skipped calling emergency level 1. A level 2 emergency means power reserves have dropped to critical levels and allows the operator to call on more supplies to prop up the grid. It’s unclear what led to ERCOT call a second-tier emergency.
Spot power prices surged to more than the $5,000 a megawatt-hour, exceeding the price cap, multiple times Wednesday evening, Ercot data show. That was quadruple the cost of power supplies for that period in the day-ahead market.“We knew wind was low and demand was high, but there was no reason to expect conditions to be worse than many other days this summer,” said Katie Coleman, an attorney for the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers. “We are still trying to understand what happened.
ERCOT’s move comes after the state’s GOP leadership lauded what it said were comprehensive grid overhauls that would prevent a repeat of the 2021 winter blackout. ERCOT didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The alert was called during the evening, the time of day that now has become perilous for grid operators because supplies of solar power go down but other generation sources aren’t always available to pick up the slack.Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
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