ERCOT: Rolling home outages possible Thursday

The Associated Press

August 4, 2011

SAN ANTONIO — The electric grid operator for Texas says there is a "high probability" of rotating residential outages as power demand statewide struggles to keep pace with record triple-digit highs.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas on Thursday escalated the warning quickly as power demand surged. Large industrial customers were already being paid to temporarily drop off the grid to conserve power for the rest of the state.

ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark says Texas hasn't seen rolling summer outages since 2006.

ERCOT said rolling residential outages typically last 15 to 45 minutes. It's up to each electric provider to decide how the outages will be implemented.

Roark says the potential for outages was exacerbated Thursday by more generators being out of service.