Austin Energy's outage map for the city and surrounding area earlier today. Austin Energy is a publicly owned utility that provides power to Austin and the surrounding areas | outagemap.austinenergy.com/
Austin Energy's outage map for the city and surrounding area earlier today. Austin Energy is a publicly owned utility that provides power to Austin and the surrounding areas | outagemap.austinenergy.com/
The city of Austin is resisting a request by the state corporation that controls Texas' electric power grid that the city and other providers shed power amid the ongoing power outages that could become worse, an Austin newspaper reported earlier Tuesday.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas' Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has asked Austin Energy to shed more power, which could mean outages for emergency services, the Austin American-Statesman reported this morning.
ERCOT operates the state's electric grid and manages the deregulated market for about 75% of the state, where the PUC has primary jurisdiction.
Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool
| austintexas.gov/
Austin is pushing back on ERCOT's request, Austin City Council District 7 member Leslie Pool told the Austin American-Statesman following her briefing by an assistant city attorney "who was part of the conversation with the agency," the newspaper reported.
"They may have to turn off the circuits for emergency infrastructure," Pool said. "We have literally shed everything that we can."
Meanwhile, posts on Twitter show that the lights are still on in downtown Austin.
An ERCOT spokesman confirmed Pool's observation and clarified that the request was not specific to Austin but also had been made to power providers statewide. All are being asked to "curtail load."
About 200,000 of Austin Energy's customers - about 40% - are without power amid below-freezing temperatures. That number is part of the millions statewide without power.
Austin Energy stated it could not rotate outages without affecting those circuits to critical infrastructure such as hospitals, KUT reports.
Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent referred to the situation as "unprecedented" during a Monday morning news conference.
"This event happened quickly, and the amount of load that we needed to remove from the grid was significant," Sargent said. "It was in a very short time that we maxed out on all of the available circuits that we had to disconnect. Because we're at a max limit, there's no more energy that we can shut off at this time to bring these customers back on. Basically, we're stuck here."
The outages arrived as wind turbines across the state went off line due to being frozen. Various news outlets said that roughly half of Texas' wind capacity went offline but Fortune offered a more complicated outage explanation, that majority were from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants "which together make up more than two-thirds of power generation during winter."
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