AUSTIN – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas held a news conference on Wednesday and discussed its new program Texas Advisory and Notification System or TXANS and its new website. If you would like to sign up for TXANS notifications through email, go here.
As summer approaches, ERCOT is anticipating record demand for electricity. Officials said extreme summer temperatures combined with population growth may lead to a grid failure or brownouts, but there is a low probability of this.
Power failure: How a winter storm pushed Texas into crisis
The new system was created to build trust and be transparent with people about the grid, according to ERCOT. The website has a dashboard where people can see a live update of the grid’s condition.
The program will also send the following alerts:
Weather watch
- This will be sent a few days before difficult weather conditions are expected that could cause high power demand or low power reserves.
Voluntary power conservation notice
- This will be sent to ask people to try to use less power.
This new system will not replace the energy emergency alerts sent when there are emergency grid conditions. ERCOT said this summer it has more resources to power the grid and does not expect to send many conservation notices.