AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – A majority of Texans will be able to check in on power grid conditions and advisories beginning this summer, with the launch of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s new “Texas Advisory and Notification System” as both temperatures and energy usage increase. However, customers in the Texas Panhandle and around the High Plains rely on a different grid than the rest of the state and won’t be covered by the new system.

Even so, as severe weather continues to impact the High Plains, with communities experiencing flood conditions and power outages amid the long string of storms, residents already have a “TXANs”-like system of their own.

As previously reported on MyHighPlains.com, most of the Texas Panhandle and the High Plains is connected to the Southwest Power Pool, which serves Xcel Energy. Both of those agencies post grid status advisories and updates on social media, and also have opportunities for customers to receive email or mobile notifications on advisories and outages.

According to the SPP, grid conditions and reliability events that could be reported include advisories and alerts such as:

• Normal Operations: SPP has enough generation to meet demand and available reserves, and it foresees no extreme or abnormal threats to reliability.
• Weather Advisory: Declared when extreme weather is expected in SPP’s reliability coordination service territory.
• Resource Advisory: Declared when severe weather conditions, significant outages, wind-forecast uncertainty and/or load-forecast uncertainty are expected in SPP’s balancing authority area.
• Conservative Operations Advisory: Declared when SPP determines there is a need to operate its system conservatively based on weather, environmental, operational, terrorist, cyber or other events.
• Energy Emergency Alert Level 1: Declared when all available resources have been committed to meet obligations, and SPP is at risk of not meeting required operating reserves.
• Energy Emergency Alert Level 2: Declared when SPP can no longer provide expected energy requirements, or when SPP foresees or has implemented procedures up to, but excluding, service interruptions to maintain regional reliability. 
• Energy Emergency Alert Level 3: At this level, SPP is utilizing operating reserves such that it is carrying reserves below the required minimum and has initiated assistance through its Reserve Sharing Group. SPP foresees or has implemented firm load obligation interruption. Before requesting an EEA 3, SPP will have already provided the appropriate internal notifications to its Market Participants.
• Restoration Event: Defined as a major or catastrophic grid outage which could be a total or partial regional blackout, island situation or system separation.

Customers can sign up for email updates about changing grid conditions on the SPP website. Further, as detailed on its website, Xcel Energy customers can use its website to check the status of outages or report them in the service area, as well as sign up for outage updates and other alerts.