Power outages continue across San Marcos
San Marcos continued to see power outages Tuesday as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas worked to restore power across the state.
The City of San Marcos said San Marcos Electric Utility is seeing between 16,000-32,000 customers without power at a given time, depending on the location of the outages around town.
The city said areas without power for extended periods based on reports received from residents include Post Road; Villagio Apartments (1850 Aquarena Springs Drive); Sienna Pointe apartments (2913 Hunter Road); and The Thompson apartments (1655 Mill Street).
ERCOT said Monday that enough power was resorted to serve 500,000 households.
“ERCOT and Texas electric companies have been able to restore service to hundreds of thousands of households (Monday), but we know there are many people who are still waiting,” said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness. “It’s also important to remember that severe weather, mainly frigid temperatures, is expected to continue, so we’re not out of the woods.”
ERCOT entered its third and highest level of emergency operations because electric demand exceeded available supply at approximately 1:25 a.m. on Sunday. ERCOT added that a significant number of additional generating units tripped offline when the weather worsened overnight while the grid operator was contending with frozen wind turbines and limited gas supply.
“It’s extremely difficult for all of us to be without power during such a challenging time,” the City of San Marcos said in a social media post. “Due to the ongoing statewide winter weather disaster and unprecedented levels of energy demand, ERCOT, the state’s electric grid operator, has ordered SMEU and other utilities across the state to initiate mandatory rotating outages.”
SMEU is required to reduce electric demand through rotating outages, which are lasting for several hours. The city said SMEU is operating in compliance with ERCOT requirements to reduce power load by an amount determined by ERCOT.
“We understand the frustration our community members feel during these ERCOT-ordered rotating outages,” the city said. “Unfortunately, we cannot say when power will be restored. We ask for your patience over the next few days while we continue to work through these challenges.”
