Apr. 19--HARLINGEN -- Sara Salinas sets the thermostat in her home at 78 degrees when she is at home.

But the possibility of saving money on her electric bill has Salinas thinking of setting the air conditioner at least one degree higher.

"I've never really tried doing that," said Salinas, who raises the temperature in her home to 80 degrees before leaving for work in the morning. "I would be willing to try it to see if I can save some money."

According to American Electric Power, residential customers could save 14 percent on their electric bills for each degree they raise their thermostat.

Monday, AEP was ordered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the organization charged with overseeing the state's power production and delivery system, to cut its power delivery statewide, spokesman Jerry Don Wilson said.

"ERCOT ordered the shedding of 1,000 megawatts around 4:13 p.m.," he said. "They're the watchdog, and they know exactly how much is coming through, who is selling it and how much we need."

To cut consumption, electric service providers instituted rolling blackouts throughout the state beginning at around 4:30 p.m. and ending by 7 p.m., Wilson said.

The planned outages lasted approximately 90 minutes in the Rio Grande Valley, leaving 15,385 Valley customers, including 5,888 customers on the city's east Harrison Avenue area, in the dark.

"You're looking at a power grid in Texas where the average usage is about 40,000 megawatts a day," Wilson said. "But (Monday), the state pushed 52,000 megawatts, which is way over."

Because April temperatures throughout the state are typically mild, ERCOT frequently takes electrical power production plants offline for maintenance before the sweltering summertime heat grips the state, driving up energy consumption.

"At this time of year, they like to shut down some of the plants. We usually don't get much hot weather around this time of year, but surprise, surprise," Wilson said about Monday's 95-degree heat. "The good news is that the blackout wasn't that bad. ERCOT was able to contain it."

Wilson said rolling blackouts are typically practiced and coordinated by electricity service providers.

"(Providers) try to limit blackouts to the least populated areas and where it's not going to affect nursing homes, hospitals or other things of that nature," he said.

While ERCOT failed to anticipate Monday's spike in energy consumption, Wilson said the council anticipated similar usage Tuesday, a move that would likely prevent more rolling blackouts.

ERCOT released a statement to electrical service providers Tuesday morning in which officials anticipated the statewide usage of 52,000 megawatts, Wilson said. To guard against blackouts, ERCOT would produce 58,000 megawatts of electricity, Wilson said.

While both temperatures and electricity usage will continue to rise as summer approaches, Wilson said he does not anticipate future blackouts.

"The grid will have the plants that needed maintenance back online," he said. "They'll be back online by May or June because they will have to be to meet demand."

In the meantime, Wilson said consumers like Salinas and Herb Longoria could help prevent future blackouts by closely monitoring energy usage.

"During the day our thermostat is set at 81 degrees, and when we get home we set it to about 79 and by 9:30 it declines to 77," Longoria said. "There are some other things I've done, like installing an attic exhaust fan. It's a lot cheaper than cooling with air conditioning alone. My bill is high, but the exhaust fan reduced my bill by almost 40 dollars a month."