Millions of Texans lost heat and electricity Monday as temperatures plunged into the teens with light snow and freezing rain, causing a catastrophic failure of the state’s power grid. Here's what we're facing today:
Nearly 1.4 million customers in the Houston area, or 57 percent of CenterPoint's customers, were without power this morning, the utility said. About 4.1 million across Texas are without power this morning, according to the outage tracking website PowerOutage.US. CenterPoint's website and outage tracker are up and running after being overwhelmed Monday.
RELATED: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
Outages to last today:
The state's grid manager said Monday that outages were expected to last through at least part of today as generators knocked out by the winter weather work to get back online.
The worst may be over:
The temperature Tuesday morning is a frigid 16 degrees in Houston, according to the National Weather Service, but the worst seems over. Although freezing rain is expected to hit before 5 a.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service said new ice accumulation will be less than a tenth of an inch.
Temperatures are expected to rise into the 30s today and 40s tomorrow, which should help power plants to get back online. History shows that the ERCOT system is most vulnerable when temperatures fall below 20 degrees, according to an analysis by the energy research and pricing firm S&P Global Platts.
Supplies remain tight
Electricity on power markets was trading near the state's $9,000 per megawatt hour cap this morning, according to ERCOT. Generators were providing about 47,000 megawatt hours of power, with reserves of about 1,500 megawatts, according to ERCOT's websit. The generation, plus reserves, is about 30 percent below the peak demand before the system crashed, a sign that many power generators are still offline.
The U.S. Energy Department Monday night issued an order Monday night that allows generators to operate at maximum capacity, even if they might exceed pollution limits.
More information to come:
We are following developments as they happen. Check back to HoustonChronicle.com during the day.
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February 16, 2021 at 08:08PM
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What you need to know today about the power outages around Texas - Houston Chronicle
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