Evergy suspends rolling blackouts — for now. More outages could come without warning

Evergy and other major energy companies implemented rolling blackouts again Tuesday morning, cutting power across Kansas and Missouri to avoid a large-scale power outage in the Midwest, where subzero temperatures are wreaking havoc on power generation and driving people to use more energy to heat their homes.

Evergy suspended the rolling blackouts mid-morning Tuesday, but more rounds of temporary emergency electricity shutoffs could be on the way if the region’s electricity demands continue outpacing power generation.

Southwest Power Pool, which controls energy flow in Kansas and several other states, downgraded its energy emergency Tuesday afternoon, saying “all available resources have been committed to meet obligations.” But with more high energy use and a continued deep freeze in the central United States, “it is likely the system will fluctuate” until at least Thursday, meaning rolling blackouts could continue if conditions worsen.

Energy companies and government officials are urging customers to conserve energy to avoid more shutdowns. Conservation measures include lowering the thermostats to between 65 and 68 degrees and limiting use of electronics.

“Kansans are known for pulling together and taking care of our neighbors,” Gov. Laura Kelly said in a news release. “Conserving energy during these frigid temperatures is necessary to ensure our neighbors have enough electricity to weather this cold spell. We all must come together and do our part to get us through this critical time.”

The windchill in Wichita was minus 20 at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The National Weather Service forecasts the windchill will remain below zero Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings.

Customers won’t receive a warning before the power is shut off. The controlled outages are projected to last 30 to 60 minutes and do not need to be reported.

If an outage lasts more than an hour or started after 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, call Evergy at 800-544-4857.

Weather-related outages continue in Kansas and Missouri. Those should be reported to the energy company.

The extraordinary step of temporarily cutting power to thousands of people in frigid conditions is necessary to avoid a widespread and long-term blackout, an Evergy spokesperson said Tuesday.

“This was done as a preventative measure to avoid a much longer, much larger and prolonged power outage,” Chuck Caisley, an Evergy spokesperson, said.

Evergy, Midwest Energy and Sunflower Electric share energy distribution through Southwest Power Pool, which manages the electric grid as a Regional Transmission Organization in 14 states, including all of Kansas and Oklahoma and parts of Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Texas and Wyoming.

Caisley said Evergy has been generating enough power to serve its customers. But Southwest Power Pool, which controls power flow in Kansas, called on the company to cut down on energy to its customers because of a shortage on the grid.

“At no time did Evergy not have enough supply to meet our demand for our customers,” he said. “This was done at the request of Southwest Power Pool. ... We have had enough generation at our nuclear, coal, natural gas and wind facilities to meet the demands of our customers,” Caisley said.

The 14-state system Evergy is tied into has seen a decrease in generation due to the frigid temperatures and snowfall.

“Fuel becomes very difficult to get and becomes very difficult to actually use in these extreme cold temperatures,” Caisley said. “For example, we have coal stored in all of our coal-fired power plants, but it’s stored outside. So when it rains or snows, and then freezes, moisture gets into the coal and it actually makes that coal like concrete.”

The coal then has to be broken up and loaded manually, he said.

“Ultimately, when the coal is burned, it doesn’t generate as much electricity as it normally would because of the moisture content and the temperatures of the coal,” he said.

Wind turbines have also been limited, due to low wind and weather-related mechanical issues. Evergy typically generates 30-35% of its energy from wind. That has dropped to 18% during the extreme cold, Caisley said.

“Because of the high content of moisture in the air (the wind turbines) have frozen up and are not able to turn, so a significant amount of our wind supply over the last four or five days has been offline and not generating electricity,” he said.

Other issues include slowed delivery due to road conditions, the high price of natural gas and diesel-fueled equipment failures.

Caisley said customers weren’t notified of temporary shut-offs Monday or Tuesday because there wasn’t enough time.

“We don’t have a lot of lead time,” Caisley said. “We have to act quickly to ensure the integrity and the operational stability of the electrical grid.”

In the short window of time, Evergy has to make sure it excludes hospitals, COVID-19 vaccine storage facilities and other critical infrastructure.

“In our case yesterday, it was about 10 minutes warning (from Southwest Power Pool) is what we had between the time that we got notice to the time that we had to start implementing power reductions,” he said.

This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 2:12 PM.