The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) set a new record for power demand of 63,056 MW Thursday afternoon between 4 and 5 p.m. The agency was encouraging power conservation but did not have to institute rolling blackouts.

“It’s extremely hot — and that translates into high power usage,” said ERCOT CEO Sam Jones. “Part of this new record can also be attributed to the growing economy and population in Texas.”

Thursday afternoon a TXU spokesman was warning of possible rolling blackouts following a record-setting demand peak Wednesday. Also, TXU CEO John Wilder didn’t miss the opportunity to slyly tout his company’s plans for new generation in the Lone Star state (see NGI, April 24).

“TXU Power’s plants are running hard to meet today’s new Texas peak electric demand,” Wilder said in a press release Thursday evening. “At the same time, we are working hard to build cleaner, lower cost power plants to meet the urgent needs of our rapidly growing state. We’ve all seen California’s continuing reliability problems, and we don’t want Texas to experience the same problems here.”

Indeed, TXU Corp. is no stranger to the infamous 2000-2001 California power crisis — nor some of the litigation it spawned, litigation from which the company recently sought and failed to be excused (see NGI, July 17).

“There is a high probability that we will break our peak demand record today,” ERCOT’s Jones said earlier in the day Thursday. “Barring unexpected major generation outages, ERCOT expects to have enough electricity to meet this demand. However, conserving electricity gives us an extra cushion of reserves to help ensure adequate power supplies.”

The previous record for demand in ERCOT was 62,396 MW, set July 17.

Early Thursday afternoon ERCOT had said it was not anticipating rotating power outages such as those that occurred in April (see NGI, April 24).

“Although the temperatures this week have been hotter than the April heat wave, our situation today is drastically different,” Jones said. “That day we had 20% of our generation resources out for seasonal maintenance. In August, we expect high temperatures and expect to break records in a growing state like ours, so we are prepared.”

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