What Is ERCOT And Why Did They Say We Are Going To Have Rolling Blackouts?

On Sunday morning, El Pasoans woke up to a blanket of snow that was expected but a little earlier than was predicted. Everyone had fun in the snow and everything seemed to be going along as well as can be expected in a city that doesn't usually do well with extreme weather, but by Sunday evening, a pretty scary post began making the rounds on social media.

The post said that because of the extreme weather, ERCOT would be implementing rolling blackouts. The post began to get shared all over the place. I won't share it here because it's not true, well, at least it's not true for El Pasoans.

ERCOT is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and according to their website they "manage the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers -- representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load." That load, however, does not include the El Paso area. We are under the purview of El Paso Electric.

When I saw all the social media posts about ERCOT, I reached out to George De La Torre, El Paso Electric Company, Manager of Strategic Communications and Community Engagement. Monday morning, he sent me this statement:

"El Paso Electric is not a part of the ERCOT system in East/Central Texas. Any alerts customers are seeing from ERCOT do not apply to El Paso Electric. Our crews continue monitoring the storm and working 24/7 to maintain our system reliability. We ask that everyone remain vigilant and safe and call our customer care team if they are experiencing any issues at 1-800-592-1634."

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Here is the El Paso Electric website link in case you need any more information about anything having to do with the electrical supply in Texas, and as always, don't believe everything you read on social media.