Texas power demand still high, conservation urged

* Tuesday power use beats June, July records
* Hot weather to ease a bit rest of the week

June 27 (Reuters) - The Texas power grid did not expect to break the June
electric peak demand record again on Wednesday, but the state's utilities
continued to urge consumers to conserve power as temperatures remained in the
triple digits in many parts of the Lone Star State.
On Tuesday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the primary
grid agency for the state, said demand for power broke the June record for a
second day in a row.
Power demand reached 66,583 megawatts on Tuesday as homes and businesses
cranked up their air conditioners to escape the heat, passing Monday's peak of
65,047 MW, according to preliminary grid data last night.
ERCOT forecast demand would peak near 65,200 MW Wednesday before easing to
63,000 MW Thursday and 60,600 MW Friday.
After topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in much of the state
earlier in the week and breaking temperature records in a few cities,
AccuWeather.com forecast temperatures would start to ease but much of the state
will continue to bake with the mercury reaching the triple digits through the
weekend.
Houston, the biggest city in the state, was forecast to reach 102 on
Wednesday and 100 on Thursday before dipping to 97 on Friday. San Antonio, the
state's second biggest city, and Dallas meanwhile will reach the triple digits
until the weekend, AccuWeather.com said.
On Tuesday, ERCOT issued an advisory to generators as power supplies
tightened, but avoided declaring an emergency.
Real-time power prices rose above $1,000 per megawatt-hour for a couple
hours during the Tuesday afternoon peak as power supplies tightened and briefly
reached the $3,000 maximum allowed. Real-time prices were in the teens early
Wednesday.

DEMAND RESPONSE PLAN
On Tuesday, ERCOT's board approved of a new pilot project to help reduce
demand on the electric grid when use is high and power supplies are tight.
The 30-minute Emergency Response Service pilot project, which is similar to
demand response programs in other grids, will allow eligible participants a half
hour to respond to ERCOT requests to reduce their electric use, the grid
operator said.
The program is open to electric users -- either as individual customers or
as part of an aggregated group of consumers -- who can reduce demand by at least
100 kilowatts, about the amount 20 homes use during peak demand.
The board authorized ERCOT to procure up to a total of 150 MW for the pilot,
which will begin in mid-July.
One megawatt is enough to serve about 200 Texas homes during hot weather
when air conditioners run for extended periods.
Last year, ERCOT set seven monthly peak-power records as extreme cold in
February and a long heat wave hit the state.
So far this year, Texas has exceeded the monthly records in May and June.
The state's all-time peak use was 68,379 MW last August during a heat wave
and drought.
The grid agency has projected that power use will peak at 67,492 MW this
summer, about 1,300 MW above what would be expected in a normal weather
scenario.
ERCOT has warned that rolling outages could occur this summer given the
state's limited amount of surplus generation.
The state's shrinking reserve margin has led regulators to implement a
number of wholesale market changes to encourage construction of power plants
over the long-term.
Since no grid emergency was declared on Tuesday, the market has not yet
tested the pricing changes regulators have implemented since last summer when an
extended heat wave and drought forced ERCOT to declare emergencies on six days
and to curtail power to some customers on two days in August to avoid widespread
rolling outages.
The biggest transmission and generation companies in ERCOT include Luminant
and Oncor, units of privately held Energy Future Holdings, CenterPoint Energy
, American Electric Power, PNM Resources, NRG Energy
, Exelon, NextEra Energy and Calpine.