NC governor demands answers after Duke Energy imposed rolling blackouts

Duke Energy Corp. said a combination of high winds and single-digit temperatures led to unexpected grid problems over the holiday weekend, forcing the utility to impose rolling blackouts that took thousands of customers in the Carolinas by surprise.

"We know we were not able to communicate as quickly as we normally do," Duke Energy spokesperson Keith Richardson said in an interview. "We plan to evaluate how we can improve the process to ensure we can serve customers during extreme conditions going forward."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he is "deeply concerned" that so many people did not get advance notice about the rotating outages on Dec. 24, the state's coldest day of the year.

"I've asked Duke for a complete report on what went wrong and for changes to be made," the governor tweeted Dec. 26.

Customers of local utilities served by the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority also saw rolling blackouts Dec. 23 and 24 amid record power peak demand. TVA CEO Jeff Lyash told elected officials in a conference call that the utility and its local power companies "fell short," according to a report in the Memphis, Tenn. Commercial Appeal. Like Duke Energy, the TVA had urged customers to conserve energy through the holiday weekend.

Some 'short' outages lasted hours

Duke Energy alerted customers midweek about the approaching winter storm, warning about possible outages and telling people to prepare. By Dec. 24, crews were working to restore power to half a million customers after wind gusts knocked down trees and power lines.

Charlotte residents woke up Christmas morning to a wind chill of -4 F, far below typical temperatures, and power demand soon outstripped capacity. By 7:38 a.m., Duke Energy tweeted that it had been forced to begin "short temporary power outages ... to protect the grid against long, more widespread outages."

The company's initial estimates called for outages of 15 to 30 minutes, but some lasted for hours as Duke Energy customers vented their frustration on social media. At the same time, some people who had lost power the day before remained in the dark.

"24 hours without power here in Chapel Hill," JB Bentz, a product manager, tweeted Dec. 24. "My portable generator is just barely hanging in there and keeping us from freezing to death. I know it's miserable for everyone involved, especially the crews working out there to get things fixed, but this is ridiculous."

Duke Energy reported Dec. 26 that it would be able to resume normal power operations and meet peak energy remand. The company partly credited customers who heeded the call to conserve energy two days in a row. Nearly 600 outages were still listed as of midafternoon Dec. 27.

In November, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned about potential severe energy shortfalls in parts of the country this winter, citing Texas and Midwestern states as being most at risk.

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