In an update Tuesday evening, Evergy said there is still extreme stress on the Southwest Power Pool grid because of the cold weather.Evergy said the SPP has told the utility that it may be asked to implement temporary power outage events between 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday morning.Earlier Tuesday, the SPP lifted the Level 3 Emergency Alert Level that caused rolling blackouts throughout the Kansas City metro area.The Level 3 went into effect at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday and there were rolling blackouts from member utilities, including Evergy, Independence Power and Light, Evergy, the Board of Public Utilities, throughout the morning hours. At 10:43 a.m., Evergy said the alert order had been lifted and power should start coming back online for its customers.More than 200,000 customers were impacted at one point by the Evergy outages and KMBC 9 News received numerous reports of customers without power for more than 3 hours from all corners of the metro area. As of 4:30 p.m., Evergy still lists 4,534 customers without power on its website and 83 active outages were reported.While the power has come back on for most, Chuck Caisley, Evergy senior vice president and chief customer officer, said Tuesday afternoon that there could be more outages through Wednesday morning. He encouraged people to do what they can to conserve power.“It’s really a minute-by-minute thing,” Caisley said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that we’re through the worst of it, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”The statement was echoed by Lanny Nickell with the SPP.”It’s possible we could be in this again tomorrow,” Nickell said.To avoid future shutoffs, power companies recommend keeping the thermostat between 65 and 68 degrees. They also urge people to run appliances overnight or midday and not at peak times like the morning or evening.The SPP functions as a type of air traffic control for electric utilities. The SPP tweeted, “Systemwide generating capacity has dropped below our current load of ~42 GW due to extremely low temperatures and inadequate supplies of natural gas.”This Level 3 was called for the first time ever Monday, requiring power shutoffs in 14 states, including for utilities in Kansas and Missouri. “They are the ones that are calling for this reduction in demand,” said Paul Lampe, a system operations manager with Independence Power and Light.All utilities participate – Independence Power and Light, Evergy, the Board of Public Utilities — but each gets to implement its own strategy. Because they need to reduce power demand by 1% to 5%, there are temporary shutoffs.
In an update Tuesday evening, Evergy said there is still extreme stress on the Southwest Power Pool grid because of the cold weather.
Evergy said the SPP has told the utility that it may be asked to implement temporary power outage events between 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
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Earlier Tuesday, the SPP lifted the Level 3 Emergency Alert Level that caused rolling blackouts throughout the Kansas City metro area.
The Level 3 went into effect at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday and there were rolling blackouts from member utilities, including Evergy, Independence Power and Light, Evergy, the Board of Public Utilities, throughout the morning hours. At 10:43 a.m., Evergy said the alert order had been lifted and power should start coming back online for its customers.
More than 200,000 customers were impacted at one point by the Evergy outages and KMBC 9 News received numerous reports of customers without power for more than 3 hours from all corners of the metro area. As of 4:30 p.m., Evergy still lists 4,534 customers without power on its website and 83 active outages were reported.
While the power has come back on for most, Chuck Caisley, Evergy senior vice president and chief customer officer, said Tuesday afternoon that there could be more outages through Wednesday morning. He encouraged people to do what they can to conserve power.
“It’s really a minute-by-minute thing,” Caisley said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that we’re through the worst of it, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
The statement was echoed by Lanny Nickell with the SPP.
“It’s possible we could be in this again tomorrow,” Nickell said.
To avoid future shutoffs, power companies recommend keeping the thermostat between 65 and 68 degrees. They also urge people to run appliances overnight or midday and not at peak times like the morning or evening.
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The SPP functions as a type of air traffic control for electric utilities. The SPP tweeted, “Systemwide generating capacity has dropped below our current load of ~42 GW due to extremely low temperatures and inadequate supplies of natural gas.”
This Level 3 was called for the first time ever Monday, requiring power shutoffs in 14 states, including for utilities in Kansas and Missouri.
“They are the ones that are calling for this reduction in demand,” said Paul Lampe, a system operations manager with Independence Power and Light.
All utilities participate – Independence Power and Light, Evergy, the Board of Public Utilities — but each gets to implement its own strategy. Because they need to reduce power demand by 1% to 5%, there are temporary shutoffs.
This content is imported from Facebook. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.