Like Duke, TVA said it proactively implemented a multi-step plan to ensure grid stability that included asking customers to conserve electricity and cut power to large industrial companies before turning to rolling blackouts, a spokesperson said. “We weren’t the only ones, there were others that were struggling during this same period of time,” said Holman, “Everybody was tight. If Duke and others had not done rolling blackouts, they put the grid at risk, “and that risk comes in the form of an uncontrolled loss of the system,” Holman said. View image in fullscreen Steam rises from the cooling towers of Duke Energy’s coal-fired power plant in Crystal River, Florida. “Allowing the physics to solve the problem was what we were defending against in when we made the decision to shed load,” he said. He compared the possible outcome to what did happen during the north-east blackout in August 2003. Had Duke not purposely reduced the amount of energy demand pulling on its grid, the stability of the Eastern Interconnection – the bulk electric system that stretches from central Canada to Florida and west towards the Rockies – was at risk, said Sam Holman, Duke’s vice-president of transmission and system operations at a January hearing of North Carolina’s utility regulator. ![]() What happened?īecause the demand for electricity was so high compared to the supply of electricity, a wide swath of the nation’s power grid was at risk for extensive blackouts that could have been as severe as the north-east blackout in August 2003, one Duke Energy executive told a hearing. “Gas, nuclear, coal are sometimes less reliable, but they are more reliable than renewables,” said Paul Patterson, a financial analyst with Glenrock Associates LLC who follows utilities.Įlected officials and industry experts have formed a blue-ribbon panel to study what went wrong across TVA’s seven-state territory during the storm, and Duke officials told its state regulators in January it has started an internal review. ![]() Yet, some say natural gas is the best option for right now, as utilities close older power plants and add more renewables, steps that upend the traditional power grid. “They don’t seem to see the writing on the wall that gas is not this, reliable resource,” said Maggie Shober, research director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Yet, despite those investments, when the cold hit again last year, equipment at natural gas and coal-powered plants throughout the south-east still froze.Ĭlean energy advocates and grid experts argue the December weather proved the growing number of natural gas plants, which now supply more than one-third of the nation’s electricity, are not the right choice to deal with extreme weather and are delaying a move to less climate-polluting alternatives.ĭespite that, Duke, Southern Company, TVA and others are looking past that argument and building more gas plants anyway. The near miss came after those two utilities, among others, spent billions preparing the grid for such a storm after the 2014 polar vortex, when record cold weather exposed vulnerabilities in the power grid. ![]() And in some parts of the country, as much as 63% of the outages came from natural gas plants, according to the PJM Interconnection, an organization that operates the largest regional power grid in the US. ![]() It still wasn’t enough for two of the nation’s largest electric utilities.Īs temperatures plummeted to 40F (4.4C) in a few hours and gale force winds swept across the region between 23 and 24 December, the pre-holiday preparations were put on pause as Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Duke Energy implemented historic rolling blackouts lasting about 30 minutes to an hour.īy some accounts the utilities’ inability to supply power during the extreme weather almost plunged the entire eastern US into darkness.
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