WACO, Texas (KWTX) – Power outages in much of Texas could continue until at least Tuesday, officials from Texas’s Electric Reliability Council said Monday morning.
Speaking to media representatives, Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin said ERCOT had reached a new peak demand and the system may not be able to handle the load.
Woodfin acknowledged that a planned outage of up to 45 minutes at various places in Texas has gone much further. He declined to say when that power could be restored, but said they are working around the clock to do so.
According to a press release, ERCOT entered a state of emergency at around 1:25 a.m. and started rolling blackouts at that point. They say that at the time about 10,500 MW of customer load was shed from the system. This is enough power to serve approximately two million households.
However, extreme weather conditions forced several power sources to go offline at the time, the publication said.
That equates to over 30,000 MW of generating capacity.
During the call, officials said this is the longest period of rotating outages.
Currently, about two million people have no power in Texas, many of them in Central Texas.
ERCOT is asking everyone to save as much energy as possible, to reduce the pressure on the electricity grid while they work to get everyone back online.
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