Since the start of May, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has twice appealed to homes and businesses to limit consumption at peak times to avert power shortages and rolling blackouts. ERCOT has issued conservation alerts more than four dozen times since 2008, most recently on July 10, when it appealed to customers to reduce consumption between 2pm and 8pm local time on July 11. State officials tend to blame the problem on extreme weather but the fragile condition of the electricity network has been caused by a failure to connect enough reliable generation to cope with booming demand growth. Most of the increase in electric load has been driven by rapid growth in the state’s population and […]