Stress on the grid can be caused by a variety of expected and unexpected factors. OK, what about the statewide power grid - what factors put stress on the grid? Texans experiencing local outages should check with their local utility company for an estimate for when power might be restored. However, some Texans were still impacted by local outages that were unrelated to ERCOT’s direction and the statewide grid system. In winter 2022, Texas’ power grid avoided widespread blackouts due to cold weather. There are a number of things that can cause a local outage - an extreme weather event knocking out power, lightning striking or even a car accidentally driving into an electric pole. Local outages are outages that aren’t called for by ERCOT.

Texas-New Mexico Power, which operates in portions of west, east and north Texas.

AEP Texas, which services dozens of counties including large swaths of south, central and west Texas.

CenterPoint Energy, which services the greater Houston area.

Many local utilities offer updates on their website and text alerts for outages, including: Texans who are experiencing an outage but don’t see any announcements from ERCOT should check with their local utility company instead. The power outage alert program supplies Texas broadcasters with information and updates about outages to distribute to the public. The Texas Department of Public Safety also works with ERCOT and other grid operators in Texas to put out power outage alerts when one of the grid operators believes it doesn’t have enough power supply to meet demand for the state or a particular region. When individual towns are experiencing an outage, the problem is much more likely to be local, according to an ERCOT spokesperson. Rotating outages also affect the entire ERCOT region, which covers most of Texas. This can include reports in local media, on ERCOT’s Facebook and Twitter, through the ERCOT app and through emergency email alerts that residents can sign up for here. When ERCOT calls for a rotating outage, the information will be available through several sources, a spokesperson said. How can I tell the difference between a local outage and a grid outage? It’s easy for Texans, still wary after February’s 2021 winter outage that caused many Texans to lose power for days, to confuse local outages with statewide issues with the grid. At the same time, some residents across the state lost power in outages that ERCOT says weren’t related to the power grid. These conservation requests don’t mean that power outages are imminent - instead, it’s one of the many tools that Texas’ Electricity Reliability Council uses to prevent mass power outages. Last week, Texans were asked twice to voluntarily conserve energy at home as record demand put stress on the power grid.

Texas electric grid