(WBAP/KLIF) – Austin – ERCOT moved into emergency operations Wednesday evening around 7:25 and a Level 2 alert was issued as demand for electricity spiked.
Earlier Wednesday, ERCOT sent out a conservation appeal for consumers to reduce power consumption between 6 and 9 pm. However operating reserves continued to decline.
About an hour after the emergency alert, the grid started to recover and returned to level green on the ERCOT dashboard indicating a healthy margin between supply and demand.
Due to the extreme heat this summer, ERCOT has reportedly asked for voluntary conservation measures 10 times due to high demand.
The afternoon and evening hours are usually times of high demand as people come home from work and turn down their thermostats. Solar power generation also drops in the evening as the sun sets.
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