ROLLING POWER OUTAGES COULD CONTINUE THROUGH TUESDAY
BLUEBONNET ELECTRIC, CITY OF BRENHAM ADDRESS OUTAGES
Thousands of residents continue to deal with power outages amid high electric demand and freezing temperatures.
Several times on Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) increase the amount of energy that utilities in its region are required to shed through statewide rotating outages. Officials with Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative and the City of Brenham say mandatory rotating outages could be required through today (Tuesday).
In a statement posted on social media, Bluebonnet said it is operating in compliance with ERCOT requirements to reduce power load by an amount determined by ERCOT. According to Bluebonnet, ERCOT rules set the criteria for which electric feeders – sections of power lines that can run for dozens of miles – Bluebonnet can include in emergency rotating outages.
Bluebonnet says ERCOT only orders utilities to initiate these rotating outages to prevent uncontrollable outages that could severely impact the state’s electric grid.
Bluebonnet feeders are in one of two emergency load-reduction programs: timed rotating outages, or outages of indefinite length and frequency to stabilize the electric grid.
According to Bluebonnet, feeders that power critical facilities, like hospitals or emergency services departments, and critical infrastructure, such as natural gas pipelines and storage that provide fuel to power plants, are excluded from emergency-load reduction programs.
The City of Brenham also addressed the rolling outages instituted by ERCOT, saying controlled outages related to grid supply and demand have been significantly extended due to current emergency grid conditions and the severe cold weather. The city said it does not know when power generation plants will come back online and power will be restored, and customers should be prepared to be without power for an extended period of time.
Bluebonnet members can report outages by calling 800-949-4414, by visiting www.bluebonnet.coop, or by using the co-op’s mobile app. Customers whose energy provider is the City of Brenham and whose power has been out for more than three hours can report the outage by calling 979-337-7400.
Do these health care facilities not have emergency generators? Regardless, I guess every building should have one going forward in this “dark winter” of 2021.
I have worked in healthcare centers/nursing homes for more than 30 years. Yes, most facilities have emergency generators but they don’t supply enough energy to power up the whole building. Most provide lighting and power to call light systems, powered IV supplies and oxygen supplies. Most facilities have special red plugs that are attached to the generator for emergency power. Kitchens in those facilities usually have some electricity but rely on gas stoves and ovens. Hot water heaters are usually not connected to emergency power either. Hope that answers some of your questions.
Everyone just needs to be equal huh, that’s the problem with this world. Cut your losses or move into a house across the street lol. Life could be a lot worse just remember that.
I totally agree with you!!! ?
Power is on 15 mins off 30 mins. By the time the well or heater come on it is off again. This is doing damage to anything that has electricity. We will find out how much when the temperatures get back to normal. Who do I need to send my repair bills too?
My cycle is 12 minutes on the grid and 17 minutes blacked out.
I agree 100% about the well and the heater I have a heat pump and it takes most of the 12 minutes defrosting. About the time it begins to inject some warm air the 12 minutes is up.
My well catches up pretty quickly but 12 minutes is ridiculous.
Also, forget watching any TV as DirecTV takes 10 minutes to reboot.
Send them to your Insurance company
I agree
“The current blackouts have nothing to do with renewables and everything to do with cold weather slowing down natural gas production because of freeze-offs and spiking demand for heating at the same time. Roughly 26 gigawatts of thermal energy is offline because natural gas is being diverted to provide heat instead of power. Only about 4 gigawatts of wind is offline because of icing. The problem is more of a total systems issue than one associated with renewable power.
If there are grid failures today, it shows the existing (largely fossil-based) system cannot handle these conditions either. These are scary, climate change-affected conditions that pose extreme challenges to the grid. We are likely to continue to see situations like this where our existing system cannot easily handle them. Any electricity system needs to make massive adaptive improvements.”
I agree 100%. All the extra people moving here its hard for our resources to be distributed to all fairly. And all the overseas wars we unconstitutionally involve ourself in theres no wonder our infrastructure is in such deplorable shape. If all this time and money were spent on AMERICAN SOIL we would not have these issues. And if we had a more common sense and disciplined school system that taught the basics and made the kids mind that would not hurt either. How about having more STEM classes. Directing more money from sports and putting it in to real education!! Maybe we would have some fresh young minds to come up with solutions for problems like these!!!!!!!
Maybe this will deter the migration to Texas from California and NY .
Not sure who controls these blackous, but I have timed the cut on times, some are an. Hour and 15mins, and some last 2 hrs. It’s long enough for a house to cool down, what’s up with this? This is around the clock…
We only get 12-15 on and then 30 off. By the time the heater or well can boot up to run it is off again. This is only creating a lot of damage that we will find out when we go back to normal temperatures.
Yes, you are correct. These interruptions are creating voltage transients that will cause damage to many household items. Nearly everything has a PCB in it now and their components are not designed for this. Not to mention the short cycling of gas fired furnaces. Ever notice how the fan runs a minute or two after the burners cut off? That’s not only to extract the last bit of heat, but also provides a temperature ramp down. Those things are also not designed for repeated power cycling. Get ready for cracked heat exchangers.
Heads need to roll over this disaster. Probably all the money grabbing politicians that voted to create ERCOT are retired and living large on their graft payments.
Agree 100%. ERCOT caused this by waiting too long to start the rolling blackouts. This mismanagement caused several power plants to trip. Then, the extreme cold froze them up and they could not startup. Getting any process facility to restart during these sorts of conditions is an absolute nightmare, especially if they are not designed for this sort of climate. Everyone needs to write their state representatives and DEMAND a root cause and corrective action from ERCOT. These blackouts would have still happened, but on a much decreased scale if they would have done their jobs.
Can you find out why all “grids” in the City of Brenham are not having the rolling blackouts? The people across the street on the same street as us, did not have their electricity cut off at all yesterday. Here we are again today having to deal with this. Only to be fair, let everyone be turned off for a while each day.
I totally agree with you!!! ?
Kathy I was told that some of The “Grids” are online with Nursing Homes and Facilities related to “care Giving” Those will not be part of the Blackout , So people that just happen to be on that same line will not be part of the blackout as well. Not sure if that is true but that may be the reason some homes are out and some across from them are .
Blackouts are happening at Kruse Village which is a nursing home/assisted living/independent senior living facility on Stone Street. So I don’t believe all nursing homes are exempt.
BIB Thanks for that Info, Prayers for all to get through this cold weather .
Curious why some are affected by the rolling outages and others not. Ours cycles on and off every 15 min sometimes sooner than that. Some have to turn their heat off because it is affecting their heating units.
These are definitely not “shared” outages. The homes on the opposite side of my street have never lost power, meanwhile we’re over here shivering and walking around like eskimos inside our home. Such a shame, they’ve got to do better.
I am so scared,70 years old and yesterday i went 5 hours between a little heat. today it has been more like 3 hours but still that is too long. i am getting so sick, last night i was having chest pains. how can we get help. I keep getting information about 15 minutes, but i have yet to see 15 minutes. today one of my times was 15-30 minutes instead of an hour.Who can we ask for help? yesterday i called the city utilities – i got an answering service. she told me i should be calling my service provider. HELLO? City of Hempstead is my service provider. she had no clue! that was after the first woman hung u on me. i did leave my name and number both times, but i have heard nothing. i was told the blackout was being shared across the state evenly. NOPE, i can name for you 20 people who have had NO outage without taking a breath.
I hope someone there takes responsibility if i die, i have done everything i possibly can to protect myself. what have you done to protect me? Who is responsible?
can
Remember folks- the Green New Deal will make this even worse! Wind turbines don’t work in an ice storm! Solar panels don’t work when covered with snow. WE CANNOT RELY ON SOLAR OR WIND! We have ample natural gas in the ground currently to last hundreds of years. Natural gas is a lot warmer than that pasture fan!
By now you may have heard that the issue has NOT been with the wind generated power, but with natural gas fired power plants that were either taken offline for maintenance, or that have failed and are offline because of that. While gas powered plants are not totally “green”, they are much better than coal. The other option is that the proposed 28 megawatt units at South Texas Nuclear might need to be repermitted and built. That wouldn’t solve everything, but it would certainly take the load off of the rest of the coal and gas fired plants.