CPS Energy officials say they have a large reserve of dispatchable energy ready for the coming winter — roughly 33% more than the utility expects to need during peak usage hours on cold mornings, when renewables like solar and wind aren’t yet producing.
Chief Energy Supply Officer Benny Ethridge told CPS Energy’s board of directors Tuesday the utility expects to have 6,500 megawatts of energy available per day, not including renewables.
The utility projects peak demand will be around 4,900 megawatts per day during the winter, with peak hours occurring in the mornings when people are heating up their homes and getting ready for work.
“As you’re looking at our energy supply for the winter, you’ve got a large reserve margin, about 1,600 megawatts over and above what we expect our peak demand to be,” Ethridge said.
During last year’s Winter Storm Elliott, which caused widespread flight cancellations and downed utility lines right before Christmas, CPS Energy saw peak demand of 5,167 megawatts, which set a record at the time.
CPS Energy experienced some outages during Elliott due to ice and physical damage to its equipment, not excessive energy demand.
Prepping for precipitation
At Tuesday’s meeting, CPS Energy officials presented updates on various efforts to protect against those types of weather-related damages, such as new permanent enclosures around utility infrastructure.
“These fellows here have done a lot of work to make sure that our units are ready to go,” Ethridge said, gesturing to his team.
Utility officials also stressed additional training for employees who might need to drive in winter weather or perform repairs in extreme cold, and discussed plans to confirm that natural gas suppliers have performed required weatherization upgrades.
After back-to-back severe winter storms in 2022 and 2021, CPS Energy’s chief meteorologist Brian Alonzo said it’s unclear what the coming winter might bring.
The Climate Prediction Center provides no indication San Antonio will see temperatures higher or lower than normal, but the El Niño weather pattern is expected to bring higher than usual precipitation.
“El Niño is gonna be a big factor as we head into the winter months,” Alonzo said. “As we get into an El Niño-type pattern, we get more storm systems that come more in our direction and gives us more rain chances.”
Cruel summer
That prediction comes as the region is experiencing an exceptional drought. Although rain in the past week has provided some relief, San Antonio recorded just 2.02 inches of rain over the summer, its fifth driest summer on record.
CPS Energy’s peak demand over the summer reached 5,703 megawatts, up 5.4% from 2022. The utility initiated 37 “demand response events” in which ratepayers were asked to conserve energy.
CPS officials said those requests saved an estimated 250 megawatts, enough to power up to 50,000 homes.
Melissa Sorola, vice president of corporate communications and marketing, credited the utility’s heightened conservation messaging, which included text messages, emails, and advertising on receipts and in grocery stores.
On one hot day in August, she said, CPS Energy sent out 350,000 emails and 21,000 text messages to customers asking them to conserve power.
“We are very cognizant of message fatigue. We heard that around the late August timeframe,” Sorola said. “There was a lot that we were sending out, but it was very hot and we had to do that.”
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