ERCOT suspends rollout outages, but CPS Energy customers without power may not see any relief for days

SAN ANTONIO – The number of CPS Energy customers affected by power outages has dropped significantly overnight as ERCOT has ended its statewide rollout strategy, but the city’s energy chief says “we are not out of the woods” .

CPS Energy CEO Paula Gold-Williams said about 10,000 customers were still without power as of Thursday morning, instead of more than 200,000 customers who were without power all week as winter weather devastated San Antonio.

Gold-Williams kept the public and media informed during a briefing and question-and-answer session Thursday morning when another round of snow fell in the area.

The numbers have been leveling, she said, since the Energy Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, suspended mandatory outages to preserve the wider network.

“San Antonio’s energy status and landscape have improved overnight,” she said. “Generation capacity safely exceeds demand.”

Advertisement

ERCOT officials said they were able to get various sources of power generation online throughout the day Wednesday, allowing them to lift the monitored outages. However, officials warned that the outage may need to be rerun on Thursday evening if demand exceeds supply again, when temperatures will drop.

“We could reimplement rotating faults on a limited basis,” said Dan Woodfin, Senior Director System Operations at ERCOT.

Customers who are still without power could not see lights for a “long time”, possibly until Monday, due to equipment failure, Gold-Williams said.

More fuses than usual have blown in the outage control process, slowing recovery, she told councilors in a special session Wednesday afternoon.

“That stuff is normal outage management that we know how to do … but it’s still going to be a challenge,” because of the possibility of icy conditions, she said.

Advertisement

Under normal circumstances, she said, those equipment malfunctions could have been fixed by late Thursday.

She added that CPS Energy employees have also faced downtime and crews have been stranded trying to reach customers.

Due to conservation efforts, she said San Antonio’s demand has fallen to about 4,200 megawatts, which is less than about 5,500 MW during the week.

CPS Energy’s capacity is 7,000 MW and a typical summer peak demand is around 5,100 MW.

With fewer power plants open at this point due to typically less demand, there were problems with every power source, she said earlier.

Leaders on Thursday emphasized extra energy saving efforts for residents and companies with more wintry weather.

“It’s possible we can go back to forced power outages if we can’t control this statewide situation,” she said, adding residents need to turn off unnecessary appliances, lights, or other items.

Advertisement

Areas near San Antonio can see another 1 to 2 inches of snow Thursday, and temperatures will be hard to get above freezing.

Stay informed

As always, your weather authority team will keep you informed. You can get the very latest weather forecast anytime by bookmarking our weather page and downloading the KSAT Weather Authority app – available for both Apple and Android devices.

Also read: