WACO, Texas (KWTX) – Power outages through much of Texas could continue at least Tuesday, Electric Reliability Council of Texas officials said Monday morning.
Dan Woodfin, senior director of systems operations, said during a call with media representatives that ERCOT had reached a new peak demand of all time and that the system may not have been able to handle the load.
Woodfin admitted that a planned break of up to 45 minutes was pushed far above it at several locations in Texas. He declined to say when the power could be restored, but said they were working on it for 24 hours.
According to a news release, ERCOT entered the state of emergency around 1:25 a.m. and at that time started an outbreak. They say at that point, about 10,500 MW of customer cargo was dumped from the system. That’s enough power to power about two million homes.
However, according to the release, extreme weather conditions at that time forced them to move away from power sources.
This amounts to more than 30,000 MW of generating power.
During the call, officials said it was the longest period that turn interruptions had been carried out.
Currently, about two million people remain without power in Texas, many of them in Central Texas.
ERCOT is asking everyone to save as much energy as possible to reduce the voltage on the power grid while working to get everyone back online.
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