ERCOT says limited interruptions are still possible at night due to snow, cold temperatures

Austin, Texas – Although many CPS Energy customers have their power restored, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas says there is still the possibility of some limited outages on Thursday night or Friday morning due to cold weather.

Still, ERCOT said in a statement on Friday that it expects more available power generation.

“The generating units that were online this morning have remained connected throughout the day,” said ERCOT’s senior director of system operations, Dan Woodfin, in a written statement. “With stable generation, we hope that more generation will continue to become available.”

Although the snow is coming to an end, there will still be sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice all night until morning, possibly leading to limited interruptions. These interruptions will help to keep the network stable when usage increases, according to ERCOT.

According to the CPS Energy outage map, around 7 pm on Thursday, there were 215 active outages and 5,103 customers without power. These numbers are subject to change overnight.

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Those without electricity can fall into one of three categories, according to ERCOT:

• Outside areas due to damage from ice storms in the distribution system

• Areas that have been taken out of service due to the emergency power load shed that need to be manually restored (ie, send a team to the site to re-energize the line)

• Large industrial facilities that were voluntarily shut down to help during this energy emergency

As of 6:30 pm on Thursday, ERCOT said that almost 36,000 MW of generation remains in a forced outage due to this winter weather event. Of this total, approximately 21,400 MW are from thermal generation and the rest are wind and solar.

RELATED: ERCOT suspends interruptions in progress, but CPS Energy customers without power may not see relief for days