Power demand in Texas grows more slowly than forecasted

From StateImpact Texas, a joint effort of radio station KUT Austin and KUHF Houston, a report that consumption of electric power in Texas isn’t growing as fast as expected:

As the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) considers changing the electricity market so there’s more money to build new power plants, a mystery has popped up: why aren’t Texans using as much electricity as predicted?

“There’s something that’s been going on recently with the forecasts, which affects a lot of things,” said PUC commissioner Kenneth Anderson at the commission’s open meeting last week.

Who Turned the Lights Out?

Anderson said forecasts from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) had predicted electricity demand would increase in 2013 by 2.1 percent.

In reality?

“It’s been barely one percent, if it’s even hit one percent,” Anderson said.

As the story highlights, this is kind of a big deal. The Texas PUC…