AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ power grid operator asked residents Tuesday to voluntarily cut back on electricity due to anticipated record demand on the system as a heat wave kept parts of the state and southern U.S. in triple-digit temperatures.
In neighboring Oklahoma, more than 100,000 customers were eagerly awaiting the restoration of power and air conditioning following weekend storms that downed trees and snapped hundreds of utility poles. Officials say at least one person in Oklahoma has died because of the prolonged outages, which could last into the weekend for some residents.
The request in Texas marked the first time this year that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — which serves most of Texas’ nearly 30 million residents — had asked customers to cut their energy consumption. ERCOT said it was “not experiencing emergency conditions,” but it noted that the state set an unofficial June record on Monday for energy demand.
Much of Texas was under excessive heat warnings Tuesday that were set to stay in place until Wednesday, with forecasted heat indexes surpassing 110 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Many Texans have been skeptical of the state’s grid since a deadly 2021 ice storm knocked out power to millions of customers for days. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said improvements since then have made the grid more stable, but those improvement efforts continue to draw scrutiny.
In Louisiana, the Southwestern Electric Power Company said more than 93,000 of its customers remained without power Tuesday morning. Nearly half them were around Shreveport, where the utility has estimated power would be restored by Saturday night.
At its peak, nearly 250,000 SWEPCO customers lost power due to the severe weather. SWEPCO said it had more than 3,000 utility workers trying to restore power in the region.
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Associated Press writer Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.
Paul J. Weber, The Associated Press
