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Texas power need to break May record in heat wave on Friday

Power use in Texas was on track to break the record for the month of May on Friday for a 2nd time this week and could top that again over the Memorial Day weekend as homes and services crank up air conditioning unit to escape a heat wave.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the majority of the state's power grid for 27 million clients, said the system was currently running generally with enough supply offered to fulfill predicted demand all week.

ERCOT predicted power need would peak at 75,296 megawatts ( MW) on May 24 and 75,952 MW on May 26, which would top the present record for the month of May of 72,261 MW on May 20.

The grid's all-time peak was 85,508 MW on Aug. 10, 2023.

Experts anticipate ERCOT electric usage will top that all-time high this summertime with financial and population development in Texas and need for power from data centers, expert system ( AI) and cryptocurrency mining increasing quick.

One megawatt can generally power about 800 homes on a normal day however as couple of as 250 on a hot summer season day in Texas.

Heats in Houston, the greatest city in Texas, were anticipated to increase from 92 degrees Fahrenheit (33.3 Celsius). on Thursday to 99 F on May 27, according to meteorologists at. AccuWeather.

The regular high in Houston at this time of year is 88 F.

Over the next week, ERCOT predicted materials would go beyond. need by as much as 42,500 MW throughout the morning of May 26 when. the sun begins to stimulate photovoltaic panels and by just. 6,600 MW at night of May 24 after the sun decreases and. photovoltaic panels quit working.

That comfy level of supply presumes nothing modifications,. but ERCOT said it currently experienced the abrupt loss of. generation amounting to 1,438 MW on May 22. That decreased materials.

The outage was at Panda Energy's natural gas power plant in. Temple, Texas, and was likely caused by a twister that passed. through the location last night, according to energy information and. analytics business Wood Mackenzie.

Panda Energy was not instantly available for comment.

There were, nevertheless, over 110,000 homes and businesses. without power Thursday morning due to storms over night. Those. brand-new outages decreased power need and followed Texas energies. restored service to many customers knocked out in extreme storms. last week.

(source: Reuters)