Rolling blackouts

[txdon]

Rolling blackouts because of the "cold". This area is blacked out for 30 minutes every 3 hours. Temp in central Texas this morning is a warm 16 degrees. Wood burning stove is keeping the house warm.

 

[Thomas]

Of all times to do so..hope folks have electric back that doesn't burn wood.

 

[Uncle Doug]

My wife called me about the time I got to work this morning to say the power was off. No tree or power line ice down here in SE Texas so it might of been a rolling power outage. I told her the heater in the travel trailer will run off of propane and dual battery if needed. About the time she got it warmed up and got the dog and her mother into the trailer the power came back on. We will se how long this goes on.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've lost power three times this morning. It's clear and cold outside. Temps were 16 when I woke up, and it's up to 25 right now.

Power goes out for about ten minutes, and then comes back on for an hour or so. I haven't timed it and didn't know about rolling blackouts until just now.

I have my wood stove going and it's 70 degrees in my house. I sure am glad that I installed it last year!!!!!

Eddie

 

[Western]

We have lost power twice. Once for 15 minutes ,once for an hour.
We have plenty of wood so the house is ok, just would hate to have the water freeze, luckily the well is on another co-op.

Started out at 10 degrees here this morning, up to 15 now.

Who ever left the door open up north is probably laughing right now.

 

[JB4310]

Rolling blackouts because of the "cold". This area is blacked out for 30 minutes every 3 hours. Temp in central Texas this morning is a warm 16 degrees. Wood burning stove is keeping the house warm.

Why black outs because of cold? because everyones running electric heaters?

Seems like a reasonable aproach to protect the grid, as long as they had a schedule so you would know how to plan your chores.

JB.

 

[MoKelly]

Makes no sense to me. Don't you guys in Texas have hot summers where the air conditioning runs quite a bit? Do you have blackouts in the Sunmmer?

MoKelly

 

[jinman]

My power was off between 6:40 and 7:20 this morning and again between 9:15 and 9:45, so it would seem the rolling blackouts are widespread to keep the grid up during heavy use. I have generators ready, but don't want to use them if I don't have to. My fireplace is useless unless you are standing right in front of it or have a huge roaring fire. I have a company that is supposed to come and give me an estimate for installing a fireplace insert and a wood burning stove in my walkout basement, but I'd guess they are really busy because they are the only Quadrafire dealer in the whole Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex.

Oh yes, it was 7 degrees here this morning at 7:30 am and is now up to 15 F. . . a heat wave.

 

[/pine]

The power companies pay dividends to the stockholders while the infrastructure stays at a "get by" level of integrity....

...if they just put a little more of the profit they make into the infrastructure they would not need ration the juice....at least that is the way it here in FL whenever there is a high demand...or the wind starts to blow gale force...

we (deep S.E.) escaped the storm this time...

 

[jinman]

Makes no sense to me. Don't you guys in Texas have hot summers where the air conditioning runs quite a bit? Do you have blackouts in the Sunmmer?

MoKelly

Yes, we do have blackouts in the Summer when it gets very hot. With this cold spell, the normal electric heat load is far more than normal. We have mostly heat pumps for heat here and they don't work well below freezing. Suddenly all the emergency electric coil backups are kicking in and sucking juice like crazy. I also have portable heaters in a wellhouse and two in my cabin keeping things just above freezing. Our heat sources here are just not very efficient because normally they don't need to be.