BTU outages caused by ERCOT mandated blackouts

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - Many of you have called and messaged KBTX and asked why it’s taking so long for the power to come back on. Others have wondered why some parts of town still have power and others have been in the dark for hours.

According to BTU Executive Director of Business and Customer Operations David Werley, some of it is out of BTU’s control. He says the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is mandating rolling blackouts. The nonprofit organization that operates Texas’ power grid warned Sunday that it may be forced to impose rolling outages in the state on Monday and Tuesday as a major winter storm brings record low temperatures and causes massive demand for electricity.

They were forced to do so overnight in order to meet the extremely high demand for energy. Currently, they’re asking local transmission owners to limit their usage and initiate planned blackouts in order to conserve energy.

Werley says it will be up to ERCOT to decide when to end the rolling blackouts.

Watch the full interview in the player above.