As of 5 p.m. the ERCOT system demand was 66,925 megawatts – above the all-time record of 65,776 MW that occurred Aug. 23, 2010. Peak usage usually occurs around 5 p.m. most days, so hitting this peak so early in the day is a bit surprising.Tomorrow, we should see the final number for August 1, 2011. Incredible.
When we had the really big heat wave here in Minneapolis a few weeks back there were no media demands for major energy conservation. The 15% discount save switch did apparently kick in but not large media campaigns to save energy. Just before I retired in late 2007 I would see the exhaust plumes from building emergency generators that were feeding into the grid.
ReplyDeleteObviously expensive but you don't hear about that now. The truth be told business uses most electricity and to give credit the management is much better now. If a Minnesota taconite/iron mine processing plant or our steel scrap "mini-mill" is running at low demand they will gladly go into "maintenance mode" if they can sell their usually used electricity.
This is basically good. That said, area of steep decline like Detroit had rolling blackouts in the last big heatwave. This sounds like utility disinvestment which we don't have here in Minneapolis.
Go figure!
Greg,
ReplyDeleteThat's a great observation; I missed it.
Someone also wrote that one of the reasons US has fewer rolling brownouts/blackouts is because manufacturing is down across the country, but then, as you point out, Detroit, where they have had huge manufacturing cutbacks, rolling blackouts.
One wonders if manufacturers have better control of energy usage; and all those folks not working are at home using air conditioning. I don't know, but you made a great observation about Detroit.