No summer outages in Texas foreseen

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The state's electric grid operator is predicting that Texas will make it through the summer without rolling outages after the system was pushed to the brink last year.

Trip Doggett, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told lawmakers Tuesday there should be enough power since forecasters are not anticipating the same extreme temperatures seen during last summer's record drought.

Yet Doggett said the reserve power supply will nonetheless be tight and predicted that lesser emergency measures will again be needed. Those steps include asking consumers to voluntarily conserve energy and buying power from other grids.

Last summer's sweltering heat pushed the Texas power grid to full capacity. ERCOT escaped resorting to rotating residential outages by shedding large industrial and commercial users and buying power from Mexico.