Electric customers across Texas were frustrated by the statewide rolling brownouts that occurred in early February. College Station Utilities shared our customers’ exasperation and deeply regrets any inconvenience or related problems caused by this emergency situation. State and federal authorities have launched investigations, and we are optimistic that the specific causes will be identified and appropriate steps taken to prevent a reoccurrence.
What Happened
In the early morning hours of Feb. 2, the extremely cold weather caused numerous power generation plants throughout the state’s transmission grid to trip offline in rapid succession. As a result, all electric utilities within the transmission system operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) immediately were ordered to conduct rolling brownouts of non-emergency customers. Without the brownouts, the ERCOT grid could have completely collapsed and would have taken 48 hours or longer to restore. Thanks to the timely response of electric utility systems within ERCOT, the grid did not collapse and the brownouts ended just after 1 p.m. College Station Utilities worked extremely hard to minimize the impact of this event on our community.
Continue reading “Keeping the Lights On: Brownouts Were Costly”
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