ERCOT Daily 18-Feb-2025

ERCOT projecting record winter load on Thursday.

Load and Load Forecast

Peak hourly load yesterday was 62,921 MW, 0.4% higher than yesterday’s forecast of 62,600 MW. Peak load was above the upper band of the trailing 5-year maximum load range (morning peak). The daily minimum load (morning) was also above the top band of the 5-year minimum load range. (The ranges average over 5 years and one week either side.)

The average daily load for yesterday was 50,550 MW versus Yesterday’s estimate of 50,890 MW. See the table below for the forward daily estimates.

ERCOT’s peak load forecast for today is 58,600 MW. The forecast for tomorrow is lower at 71,200 MW. Record load is 85,559 MW from 20-Aug-2024 and winter peak from 16-Jan-2024 had a peak load of 78,314 MW. Current forecast peak for 20-Feb is 79,500 MW.

For weekly averages this week ending this coming Friday 21-Feb 15Z, the average power is estimated to be 56.72 GW, up 0.30 GW from yesterday’s estimate. The verification for last week ending last Friday 14-Feb 15Z was 51.79 GW and 46.89 GW the week before.

Weather

The Dallas area temperatures expected to break the 20-year band on 20/21-Feb and perhaps also on 22-Feb. Notice that the historical band goes lower on 16-Feb which is from the famous winter storm Uri. Warm-up follows.

Coastal temperatures also head to the bottom of the 20-year band, but it doesn’t look painful for the Coast. Perhaps a short period of temperatures below freezing—not a couple of days like Uri.

Today, NOAA’s 7-Day QPF has Days 1 & during the Days 4-5 period. West Texas is dry throughout.

Generation

Wind supply crashes during the depth of the cold, but it doesn’t go to zero.

This week ending this coming Friday (21-Feb 15Z) the average wind power forecast is 16.71 GW, higher by 0.69 GW and higher than last week (ending Friday 14-Feb 15Z) which was 11.96 GW. The week prior was 15.14 GW.