Posted on 02/02/2011 5:54:36 AM PST by BuckeyeTexan
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has ordered utilities to begin rotating outages to compensate for a generation shortage due high usage in extreme weather. Rotating outages are controlled, temporary interruptions of service designed to ease the load on the electric grid. To see recent reports on the grid load, click here.
The outages last anywhere from 10-45 minutes and the locations and durations are determined by the local utilities.
Critical need customers such as hospitals and nursing homes are generally not included It is not known at this time how long the need for rotating outages will last.
Consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use to the lowest level possible, including these steps:
They changed the title while I was posting the article. New title:
Power Grid Taxed, Rolling Blackouts Ordered
Imagine having 50 new nuclear plants that the stimulus dollars could have started building. We would have needed to ban lawsuits by the greenies.
We already had a couple hour blackout two nights ago when the storm went through. Just wait until Hussein finds out about this. He’ll make it policy and declare blackouts along with throwing the internet kill switch when ObamaCare finally gets slapped down.
It rolled by my house this morning, still on at the office.
Rolled my house too. Lasted only 30 minutes.
Got me for about 15 minutes NW of Austin. Temp dropped 5 degrees in the house.
Had to sit on the trucks to listen to dispatches lol
We had a 15 minute outage in north Dallas area.
How is this possible? They’re building windmills like crazy in Texas.
Whenever you have intense storms or seemingly unending blizzard conditions, you will always have downed power lines and massive losses of power.
Most cities and states can handle these problems well but it seems that in those places that are run by liberals and democrats, there always seem to be a problem marshaling the resources necessary to get the job done.
That was the case with Hurricane Katrina. That was the case with the most recent blizzards in the Northeast and now they are bracing for another hit.
Let’s hope they get their act together in time to prevent unnecessary deaths due to bureaucratic and political negligence.
Just went through one here too.
I thought it might have been just me but I live on a ridge above a little town here in the Hill Country and looked down at the town and not a light anywhere.
Came back on in about 20 minutes. But I have a fireplace and butane stove so I was okay.
This is what the “Smart Grid” being developed under the auspices of NIST per Congress is intended to prevent. (Note that nobody owns the name “Smart Grid” so there are a LOT of so-called “Smart Grids” out there, somebody’s idea for marketing their gadgets, nearly all incapable of dealing with this.)
I’ve had two this morning in Central Texas. One was for about 20 minutes. I’m not sure if the other was an official blackout or a blip because it only lasted about 8 minutes.
Of course, more generation would help too.
Yeah, but the point is for the peasants to NOT use energy,
or only to use it when the neo-nobility “allows” it.
Reminds me of the tale of the King traveling through “his” lands and stopping at a hovel to warm himself. There was no fire, and when the king asked why, the peasant replied that it was by his order that the peasants only use so much firewood and he had used all his up already.
Do a lot of folks in TX heat with electricity?
I would have guessed it was largely nat gas.
Turd world banana republics do not have enough power generation to meet demand, not the United States. It is pathetic how, over the past 30 years, so many once-proud, can-do utilities have saluted the greenie religion and put in place demand control programs rather than build power plants.
“Reminds me of the tale of the King traveling through “his” lands and stopping at a hovel to warm himself. There was no fire, and when the king asked why, the peasant replied that it was by his order that the peasants only use so much firewood and he had used all his up already.”
Good one!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.