Members of the Lewisville Noon Rotary are invited to gather after this week's meeting for a quick shopping trip to stock the Communities in Schools Food Pantries, which serve several LISD campuses. Interest Rotarians can meet with David Seaman at 1:15pm on Wednesday at Sam's Club on Main Street in Lewisville. The groceries are paid for out of the LNR donation fund, and filling the shopping baskets generally takes only half an hour. Hope to see you there!

 

Volunteers from the Lewisville Noon Rotary Club last Friday served ice cream and toppings to clients at Special Abilities North Texas, a local charity that provides high-quality care, training, and support to adults with developmental disabilities. Special thanks to LNR member Officer Rachel Roberts for organizing this great event! Everyone shared tasty treats and big smiles at the very special ice cream social!

 

TNMP does not control the power grid, he explained. That responsibility falls to ERCOT, the primary grid operator for almost all of Texas, which balances power generation with demand (or "load") and ensures reliability of the grid. ERCOT allocates the power provided by generator owner/operators, who generate electricity through oil and gas, solar, and wind power, among other means. ERCOT then acts as a sort of logistics company to allocate that power to transmission distribution service providers (TDSPs) like TNMP, which deliver the electricity to homes and businesses across the state.

 

ERCOT has 92,000 MW installed generation capacity, explained Nix, and on July 20th hit peak load for 2022 at 79,826 MW. TNMP’s portion of that peak was only 2300 MW, which is much lower than the load from larger TDSPs, like AEP, Centerpoint and Oncor. To guard against power outages and keep the grid running smoothly, ERCOT does load forecasting every year, and the generator operators bid to contribute power to meet that load. ERCOT also secures reserves, based on the amount of load forecast, and has a control room full of operators monitoring actual load 24/7. ERCOT continually adjusts supply and demand to the grid, based on real-time operating conditions.

 

When there’s a problem, ERCOT will issue emergency alerts to the public and to TDSPs to try and reduce the load and avoid a grid-down situation. However, black swan events, like winter storm Uri in early 2021, are always a possibility. They continue to provide learning opportunities to identify vulnerabilities and make improvements to better secure the grid moving forward, Nix noted. Even so, residents should prepare for extended outage conditions in both summer and winter, including having an emergency kit with several days worth of water and nonperishable food.

 

To learn more, visit ERCOT.com, where you can view real-time grid conditions, reserve levels, and current alerts.

If you want credit for a make-up, contact LNR Membership chair Terry Russell to let him know when and where you attended another Rotary club meeting, or the date and service activity that you participated in to count as a make up. You have two weeks before and two weeks after a missed meeting to make up for your absence. Make-ups are a great way to meet Rotarians from other clubs and become more engaged with the outreach activities we do in the local community!