Texas power use tops record in heat wave
Electricity use soared to an all-time high in Texas amid a searing heat wave, topping levels last seen before the coronavirus pandemic.
With air conditioners humming across the nation’s second most-populous state, demand on the power grid topped 74.9 gigawatts Sunday afternoon, surpassing a record set in August 2019, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the system.
The grid is operating normally, and officials say there are ample supplies to meet demand. One gigawatt is enough to power about 200,000 Texas homes.
The record underscores the searing heat and rampant population growth underway in Texas as tech, aerospace and manufacturing companies flock to the state to take advantage of low taxes and relatively cheap labor. It’s also a potentially grim harbinger of what’s to come this summer. While Texas regularly tops 100 degrees, it’s early in the season for temperatures to be so extreme. The state had its second-hottest May on record, the National Centers for Environmental Information said Wednesday.
It’s particularly remarkable for the region to set a power-use record on a weekend, when electricity demand is typically lower because many office buildings and factories are closed.
Dallas was forecast to hit 105 on Sunday, Houston 100 and Midland 103, according to the National Weather Service.
Texas’s power grid remains under scrutiny 15 months after the system collapsed during a winter storm, leaving much of the state without power for days. More than 240 people died. Officials enacted a raft of reforms following the crisis, but critics warn the system remains vulnerable.
Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings were in effect for more than 75 million people in the southern and central United States on Sunday, a continuation of a scorching heat wave that resulted in record high temperatures Saturday in 16 cities from the Southwest to the Southern Plains, according to the National Weather Service.
On Saturday, the temperature reached 114 degrees at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, tying a record set more than a century ago.
Temperatures rose to 100 degrees and above in Las Vegas and even in Denver, where it snowed less than a month ago. In Death Valley in California, one of the hottest places in the world, temperatures soared to a daily record of 123 degrees Saturday.
In total, 27 communities either tied or broke temperature records over the weekend, weather service data showed.