Texas grid group says 14 lines restored after Ike

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Texas electric grid agency said Monday 14 of the 114 high-voltage transmission lines knocked out of service by Hurricane Ike had been restored.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees electric power flow in most of the state, said only one of six 345-kilovolt lines remained out of service at mid-day Monday.

Still disabled were 69 138-kv lines and 30 69-kv lines.

Preliminary reports indicated most of the problems were due to flying debris hitting the lines, rather than structural damage to transmission towers, which could take longer to repair.

ERCOT said 11 power plants, or about 2,585 megawatts of generation, were unable to operate due to a lack of transmission capacity.

Lower generating capacity was not an issue, however, because of the loss of electric demand in the state.

ERCOT said more than 1.7 million customers in its territory were without power, down from 2.1 million immediately after the storm.

The Texas Public Utility Commission said 2 million customers throughout the state remained without power, down from 2.8 million right after the storm. The PUC figure includes Entergy and cooperatives in east Texas, which are not connected to ERCOT, the state's primary grid.

The utilities have warned that full power restoration may take three to four weeks.

Damage from Ike as far away as Ohio and Kentucky has reduced the number of out-of-state workers able to travel to Texas to help CenterPoint and Entergy, but the utilities still expected to have thousands of extra workers to assist.

Entergy's 2,000-megawatt Sabine Power Station near Bridge City shut before the storm. The Lewis Creek plant near Willis was preparing to restart as soon as offsite power was available.

A spokesman for NRG Energy, the second-largest power producer in Texas, said its Southeast Texas plants sustained no significant damage from Ike and would be able to supply power as the transmission grid is repaired.

(Reporting by Eileen O'Grady; Editing by Walter Bagley)