The Texas Grid Could Be Strained By Large-Scale Users ERCOT Says

It's going to be a hot Summer in Texas and all eyes will be on ERCOT and the electric grid once again. The one thing that has many in Texas on edge is the threat of brown-outs or black outs during the Summer heat. And while ERCOT officials aren't predicting anything near doom and gloom, they are saying that industrial, or "large-scale" users could strain the grid.

According to the Dallas Morning News, new artificial intelligence data centers along with bitcoin miners and large-scale users in the Permian Basin are leading the people at ERCOT to predict a 37% increase in electrical demand.

The good news is that the actual demand from these high demand users will probably fall below the forecasted demands according to the Dallas Morning News.

The increase is ushering in what ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas called “a new era of planning,” particularly in the Permian Basin, where oil and gas entrepreneurs already anticipate unmet electricity needs.

ERCOT, which operates the power grid serving most of Texas, upped its forecast for electricity needed for new large-scale users from 111 gigawatts to 152 gigawatts. The actual amount of new demand from those prospective projects likely will be below those projections, but the vast number of gigawatts is still eye-popping for a power grid that has routinely seen demand records shattered.

Meanwhile, we should all be ready for warnings to come from ERCOT about the demand and reserve of energy this Summer. Unless it's a cooler Summer than what has been predicted, which would be just fine with me.