Editor's note: Updated at 5:37 pm on July 19, 2018 to reflect a new usage record. Texas' electric grid operator planned for a challenging summer. Now, it's here with electricity-usage records falling daily since Monday. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas set a sixth electricity-usage record in the last four days. Between 4 and 5 p.m. Thursday, Texas averaged 73,259 megawatts. That topped the amount of electricity used an hour earlier and also in consecutive hours Wednesday afternoon.