Category: Power Outages

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XCEL Energy Is Saying “No More” to Fossil Fuel Generation by 2030!

XCEL-Energy-Coal-Pwr-Reduction
UtilityDive.com / Wikimedia

By UtilityDive.com – Will the power utility, XCEL Energy, have enough power generation capacity by 2030 in time to abolish all of its coal-fired generating plants? Energy regulators are very doubtful that XCEL Energy can achieve this vigorous goal in replenishing enough clean power to offset their reduction in carbon emissions. The fear is: will XCEL approach a power generation shortfall over the next decade to its electric load demand?

“The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission on Jan. 4 asked Xcel Energy to reconsider shuttering its Sherco and King coal-fired power plants, writing that their premature closure adds to the uncertainty of electric generation resource adequacy in the upper Midwest.”

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TVA Is Better Prepared by Running Their Natural Gas Units During This Artic Blast!

TVA-Artic-Blast-2024

Chattanooga Times Free Press – Since the year end of 2022, Winter Storm Elliott buckled TVA’s Power Grid forcing them to cycle temporary power blackouts across the Tennessee Valley Region. The region has not seen rolling blackouts by TVA since “its 90-year history.” After experiencing these power shortages, TVA has had over a year to prepare for another frigid winter artic blast like the one that is challenging the region now by average temperatures dropping as low as the teens and the wind chill into the single digits.

TVA is better prepared this winter with recent generation upgrades and improvement projects, including running several natural gas units as peak shavers during this artic blast.
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Power Regulators Warning Power Grids Vulnerable This Winter

Winter-Power-Outages
Photo by Insaug.com

A recent NPR article warns that much of the nation’s power grid is vulnerable to the winter threat approaching with major winter storms that could cause power outages and power shortages potentially affecting over 60% of US and Canada.

“North America’s power grid is vulnerable…People living in Southwestern states are at particular risk.”

(Continue Reading at NPR.org…)

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Power Plant Retirements Are Affecting Grid Reliability!

Grid-Reliability
Photo from Utility Dive / Sean Gallup / Getty Images

With the increases in power generation retirements in both coal powered and nuclear energy plants, presents major reliability concerns to the electric infrastructure. There is over “83 GW of fossil fuel and nuclear generation” in planned retirements over the next decade that could wreak havoc on the nations power system.

NERC indicated in their “Long-Term Reliability Assessment” that this “creates blackout risks for most of the United States.”

(Continue Reading at Utility Dive…)

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Two 230kV Power Delivery Substations in NC Damaged by Gunfire

NC-Substations

By MarketWatch:

A criminal act is being investigated by the local authorities and the FBI that caused major substation damage to its power transformers and other equipment. This criminal act occurred sometime on Saturday night, Dec 3, 2022, in Moore County, NC.

The repairs could take weeks while several customers will remain without power. Crews will be working around the clock in order to replace the damaged equipment and to restore the power outages.

“Andrew Wilkins, a conservation advocate who grew up in Moore County, was driving Saturday night from Washington to his parents’ small farm in Whispering Pines when he noticed all the street lights were out in the county seat of Carthage. He arrived to a ‘pitch black street’ and little information about the cause or scope of the blackout. ‘When the power was cut, the flow of information was cut too.’ ”

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