ERCOT Ends Emergency Conditions, Normal Operations Have Resumed

UPDATE 10:48 a.m. (WBAP/KLIF News) – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas CEO Bill Magness announced Friday that emergency conditions have ended and normal operations have resumed.

“Texas can’t afford to have this happen again,” he said, adding that he welcomes conversations on how to improve capabilities.

The development is welcome news to many Texans, who have been without power for days.

ERCOT’s board director called for a meeting February 24th to address actions taken during the storm that need to be addressed.

The state legislature is expected to take up the issue next week.

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AUSTIN (WBAP/KLIF News) – Most Texans have had their power restored over the past 36 hours after enduring several days of below freezing temperatures and no heat in their homes.

Today, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said it expects to come out of emergency conditions later this morning.

The news comes a day after ERCOT ceased controlled outages.

ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations management said the ratio of supply versus demand has improved.

“There is enough generation on the electric system to allow us to begin to return to more normal operating conditions,” he said.

There were no additional outages needed overnight to keep power supply and electric demand in balance, and only a few generating units tripped.

Although most Texans are back online, some may still be without power.

ERCOT said those customers likely fall into three categories:

Those who live in areas out due to ice storm damage on the distribution system
Those who live in areas that were taken out of service due to the energy emergency load shed that need to be restored manually via work crews
Large industrial facilities that voluntarily went offline to help during this energy emergency

Customers without power are advised to contact their providers.

EROT said as of 7:30 Friday morning, about 34,000 MW of generation remains on forced outage due to the winter storm. Of that, almost 20,000 MW is thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar.

Oncor, which provides a lot the electric service to North Texas, said crews are working round the clock to restore power to customers.

As of 9:04 a.m. Friday, there were still about 100,000 customers without power statewide, according to its outage map.