Power blows past $9,000 cap in Texas as heat triggers emergency [View all]
Electricity prices briefly surged past a $9,000 a megawatt-hour price cap in Texas as extreme heat sent power demand skyrocketing and forced the state’s grid operator to declare an emergency.
As temperatures in Dallas climbed to 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39 Celsius), the Electric Reliability Council of Texas issued an emergency alert, calling on all power plants to ramp up and asking customers to conserve. At one point on Tuesday afternoon, the region had just 2,121 megawatts left in power reserves, less than 3% of total demand on the system.
The prospect of supply shortages sent wholesale electricity prices surging past $9,000 a megawatt-hour for several minutes, triggering a limit set by Ercot to avoid runaway prices during extreme events. They remained near the cap at around 5 p.m. local time as demand began leveling off and the region’s supply margins widened.
Power contracts traded on the Intercontinental Exchange were similarly headed for record settlements, said David Hoy, an electricity trader at Dynasty Power. “It’s almost guaranteed now,” he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/power-blows-past-dollar9000-cap-in-texas-as-heat-triggers-emergency/ar-AAFL62t?li=BBnbfcN
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