ERCOT gives up on plan to ease congestion in transmission that could trigger blackout

From CBS Austin.

ERCOT has yet to find an answer to a chokepoint in transmission the board says could trigger a blackout. The problem is if there is a lot of demand in North Texas during tight conditions. You may remember conditions were tight enough to trigger a conservation alert more than a dozen times last summer.

The board is trying to find another solution to the issue after they did not drum up much interest. The problem is the congestion gets in the way of ERCOT responding to the demand and whole there we’re talking about one spot near San Antonio.. There are many chokepoints across Texas that could pose problems.

There is more to keeping the air conditioners on this summer than just the amount of power generation.

There is also getting the power to your home, or the transmission, and this week the ERCOT board was talking about how that may mean trouble.

“We could see congestion, we’re during periods where we’ve got sufficient generation, but we can’t run the absolute cheapest generation at certain times,” Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston.

“When there is a neighborhood that needs more electricity or a city that needs more electricity than is available to be serviced by the transmission lines, that’s a choke point. And so, what we’ve seen come out with this board meeting is they were talking about one in particular near San Antonio, and that’s not unusual,” said Hirs.