AUSTIN, Texas — ERCOT says the Texas power grid could see rolling blackouts in a worst-case scenario this winter.
The prediction comes after ERCOT said it asked companies to restart their older plants before the winter, which it says hasn't happened.
In October, ERCOT issued a request to increase its power capacity ahead of winter's peak load season in Texas but canceled the request after it only found an additional 11 megawatts out of the 3,000 it was looking for.
The additional 3,000 megawatts would have reduced the probability of entering an energy emergency alert to less than 10%. Now ERCOT says there's nearly a 17% chance of rolling blackouts in January during an event similar to the winter storm of 2021. However, according to ERCOT, the chance of blackouts would only be that high between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., then drop to about 5% after 9 a.m.
ERCOT isn't the only one facing issues during extreme cold.
A recent report from the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said more than half of the United States could fall short of electricity during this winter during extreme cold conditions.
One Texas energy expert said ERCOT's plan was too ambitious because plant owners were not interested in restarting old, decommissioned plants ahead of winter.
"The plan was way too little, way too late," University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs told KVUE's sister station, KENS 5. "Just simply throwing some money out and hoping that people could bring a coal-fired power plant back out to operational capability within a period of weeks was really, ridiculously, ambitious."