Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Several years ago the state designed a system for rolling blackouts when electricity demand reached critical levels. The idea was to prevent any one area of the state from having an extended period without electricity by simply rolling the blackout neighborhood to neighborhood" said State Representative Phil King regarding recent power outages.
This appears to have worked very well. The question is why was it necessary? And will it occur again tonight?
The answer to the first question is were not sure yet. Over the next couple of weeks the
Public Utility Commission & ERCOT will conduct a post-mortem to determine if the blackouts were due to a systems failure or if this was simply the equivalent of our five hundred year flood."
My guess is well find it was a little bit of both. Well find some problems in
the system which we will correct.
Well also find that it was the result of an historic cold front which was difficult to ever fully prepare for.
Whats next? Conservation is the key. Youd be amazed at how much it will help if every home simply lowers their thermostat turns off unnecessary appliances outside lights etc.
Even just lowering residential demand 3 or 4 is a tremendous benefit when were bumping peak electric capacity. I expect that there will be some additional problems tonight or early tomorrow but hopefully not as widespread" said King.
