(Reuters) – Texas’s power demand reached its highest point in May and is expected to surpass the June record. This will be due to economic growth and the fact that Texas has hotter weather, which causes people and businesses alike to turn up the air conditioners.

Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the grid in Texas for the majority of its customers, stated that it has enough resources to satisfy forecast demand.

ERCOT had to remind customers on May 13, when they were forced to encourage them to save energy following several unexpectedly shutting down power plants. Real-time prices briefly soared to $4,000 per megawatt hours (MWh)

Extreme weather brings back memories of the February 2021 freeze in Texas that saw millions of people without heat, power or water for several days. ERCOT was scrambling to stop a collapse of their grid after a large number of generators were shut down.

AccuWeather predicts that Houston will experience high temperatures of 93F (33.9 Celsius), between May 31st and June 25th. This compares to a typical high temperature of 90 F (32.2 C).

ERCOT stated that demand peaked on Tuesday at a preliminary level of 71.688 megawatts (MW), which surpasses the May record of 71.160MW.

ERCOT predicted that Wednesday’s demand would be 70,398MW. This would surpass the June record of 70.257MW, set in 2021. It would also break that monthly high for June 5-7.

This June 7, 74,757MW peak would just be a fraction of the August 2019, grid record of 74.820MW.

On a normal day one megawatt could power approximately 1000 homes across the USA, while only around 200 houses in Texas can be powered by it on a hot Texas summer day.

ERCOT anticipates having approximately 91,392MW of available resources to support a peak of 773,317 MW in the summer.