North Arkansas Electric Cooperative (NAEC) has announced it will not be instituting any power conservation measures on Tuesday night.
NAEC CEO Mel Coleman issued an updated statement to the public via social media Tuesday night.
“Understand this is changing literally by the minute. Actions are designed to maintain the regional, multi state electric grid and are mandated to us.) MISO has called off any load shedding for now and has dropped to a level two emergency. Which means NAEC will NOT be instituting any rolling blackouts at 9:30 p.m. tonight.
“However, we DO NOT know if more will come during the night or in the morning at peak demand time. When and if rolling blackouts are *mandated* to us, it’s our understanding that they will be in one hour increments. Rotating geographic areas. Understand we have no control and as you’ve seen, we get notice of about 30 minutes to shed load. The cause of this latest emergency is rumored to be the loss of a major generating plant in Arkansas. Owned by another utility that’s putting power on the grid. It’s highly complicated, but it’s happening right now in several states.
“Extreme cold weather and several generating plant outages have brought on the emergency. This is NOT an electric generation reliability issue within NAEC. It’s covering many states and unfortunately it does affect our members. Our number one concern is the safety of our members and we will continue to do what we have always done, maintain our system 24/7/365. The power grid however is regional and multi-utility. We have no control over generation or the grid, but do engage to make sure our members are taken care of,” the statement concludes.
ORIGINAL STORY: Electric companies in Arkansas have announced they are beginning power conservation measures due to overwhelming demand for power due to the recent winter storms.
North Arkansas Electric Cooperative CEO Mel Coleman announced via social media that NAEC would begin “rolling brownouts at 9:30 p.m.”
Coleman says the measures were mandated by the Midwest independent system operator and that NAEC received just 30 minutes notice before the process began.
Entergy Arkansas had released no public statements to the media, but KATV in Little Rock reports a spokesperson says that the forced power outages, also know as rolling blackouts, will be widespread across the state.
KATV also reports thee outages will be widespread across the state and “will hopefully last no more than an hour per customer.”
Entergy also says it is hopeful that only one outage will occur per customer. The spokesperson tells KATV these the outages will hopefully be stopped by 2 a.m.
A large portion of the city of Mountain Home, including the Indian Creek area, was without power for approximately an hour Tuesday evening, but Entergy made no announcements if the outage was forced or due to a system problem.
UPDATE: Entergy issues statement on power outages
Action Taken as Directed by MISO Due to Increased Demand, Loss of Generation
NEW ORLEANS – Entergy has initiated additional power outages for its customers across its four-state service area. The company is taking this action as directed by our reliability coordinator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, as a last resort and in order to prevent more extensive, prolonged power outages that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid. The directive includes all of MISO’s south region, spanning from Arkansas to Texas to the Gulf South.
Due to extremely cold temperatures over the last several days, the demand for electricity has reached an all-time high. Additionally, these weather conditions have forced off generation resources across the system. The implementation of this load shed across the Entergy region will help ensure an adequate reserve margin, which helps ensure Entergy is better positioned to manage through additional extreme weather this week.
“Broadening the geographic area in which outages will occur, allows us to better manage the way in which we shed load.” said Willie Wilson, vice president in operations and system storm incident commander, Entergy. “We know this is an inconvenience and we apologize. The loss of generation in the entire region, combined with a high level of demand for electricity has caused a strain on the system.”
Entergy will work to limit the duration of each outage, but due to significant demand on the system and generation outages, options may be limited.
MISO is directing actions to be taken to restore the system to normal operations as quickly as possible and will direct Entergy to stop these outages as soon as the power shortfall no longer threatens the integrity of the rest of the electrical power system.
If customers decide to use a portable generator, use it safely and DO NOT run it in an enclosed space. If connecting to the whole house, do so only if the connection has been installed by a licensed electrician to prevent back feed on to the distribution system.
We continuously keep our communities informed throughout a storm. Customers are encouraged to download our free app for their smartphone at entergy.com/app and sign up for text alerts. Customers can also stay up to date by visiting the Entergy Storm Center website. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook or check for updates with your local news media like radio, television and newspapers.
MISO comprises a pool of electricity generators and users that stretches from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and as reliability coordinator is responsible for monitoring the portion of the electric grid it oversees and providing instructions to its members regarding actions needed to maintain reliability in that portion of the grid. In extreme and unusual circumstances, such actions may include these types outages occurring today.