Texas' power grid operator is asking Texans to conserve power Monday as a record-breaking heat wave leads to unprecedented amounts of energy demand.
The Johnson family spent time in the shade outside of their house in Houston.
On Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas asked residents and businesses to turn up the thermostat and conserve energy.
There will be no system-wide outages, but ERCOT warned of the possibility of rolling power cuts for more than 26 million customers.
One megawatt can power 1,000 U.S. homes in a single day, but only about 200, according to ERCOT.
The state is facing record electric demand across the state as residents use more air conditioning to cope with the 100+ degree temperatures outside, ERCOT said, which could be compounded by low winds on Monday.
The previous record for the location, 101 degrees, was set more than a century ago.
Texas is hotter due to climate change. According to the Texas Tribune, the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures have increased by 2.2 degrees over the past 125 years.
In Texas, ERCOT's call to conserve has caused controversy. Millions of Texans were left without power and heat in the middle of a record-breaking cold spell in 2011. The governor of the world's ninth largest economy can't guarantee the power will stay on tomorrow. Beto O'Rourke is a Democrat running against Abbott for governor.
The central and southern U.S. have been under a heat wave, and over the weekend cities in Arkansas, Colorado and Oklahoma recorded record high temperatures. According to the New York Times, about 50 million people across the country are under a heat warning or advisory. A heat dome is when high pressure traps heat over a certain area.
The heat dome is expected to shift to the west early this week, and Accuweather predicts temperatures to rise in Nevada, Arizona and Utah.
There are almost 50 million under heat warnings across the United States.
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