AUSTIN, TX, Feb. 19, 2021 – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) expects to come out of emergency conditions later this morning.

“There is enough generation on the electric system to allow us to begin to return to more normal operating conditions,” said Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin.

No additional outages were needed overnight to keep power supply and electric demand in balance, and only a few generating units tripped.

Electric utilities continue to address remaining customer outages. Customers should contact their electric provider if they are without power.

Customers that are without power likely fall into one of these three categories:

• Areas out due to ice storm damage on the distribution system
• Areas that were taken out of service due to the energy emergency load shed that need to be restored manually (i.e., sending a crew to the location to reenergize the line)
• Large industrial facilities that voluntarily went offline to help during this energy emergency

As of 7:30 this morning, approximately 34,000 MW of generation remains on forced outage due to this winter weather event. Of that, nearly 20,000 MW is thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar.

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ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load. As the Independent System Operator for the region, ERCOT schedules power on an electric grid that connects more than 46,500 miles of transmission lines and 680+ generation units. ERCOT also performs financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers retail switching for more than 8 million premises in competitive choice areas. ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.