Texas power demand again forecast to peak this week amid heat wave

(Reuters) - Texas' power grid operator on Monday again projected electricity use would break records this week as homes and business cranked up air conditioning amid soaring temperatures.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state's power load, forecast demand would hit 85,471 megawatt hours on June 27, topping last year's peak of 80,148 MWh.

This would be at least the third time in about two weeks that the grid operator has forecast record high demand.

AccuWeather forecast high temperatures in Houston, the biggest city in Texas, will hit 102.2 F (39 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday. That compares with a normal high of 93.2 F (34 degrees Celsius) for this time of year.

ERCOT issued a weather watch for June 25-30, forecasting higher temperatures driving demand higher.

Extreme weather is a reminder of the 2021 February freeze that left millions of Texans without power, water and heat for days during a deadly storm as ERCOT scrambled to prevent a grid collapse after an unusually large amount of generation was shut down.

Power use last week fell short of the record high forecast by ERCOT after storms and storm-related power outages reduced usage and consumers heeded the grid operator's June 20 call to conserve energy.

At present, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas are seeing power outages of 100,000 users each, according to data from poweroutages.us, while Texas outages stood at about 3,000 users.

Day-ahead power prices at the ERCOT North Hub, which includes Dallas, are expected to rise to $1,711.23 per megawatt hour (MWh) from 15:00 CT to 16:00 CT.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru and Scott DiSavino in New York; editing by Jason Neely)