By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Thousands of area residents experienced a temporary loss of power this morning as Evergy used rolling blackouts to reduce energy use in Missouri and Kansas.
Evergy spokesperson Andrew Baker says the utility received an energy emergency alert from the Southwest Power Pool at 6:45 this morning, requiring a 10% reduction in power use. Baker says several factors determine whether Evergy resorts to temporary power outages, including a spike in electricity use as homes struggled to keep warm during a long cold spell, which culminated with temperatures plummeting to minus-22 in some of the utility’s service areas.
“It’s the accumulative effect of the long-term cold that we’ve been in,” Baker tells St. Joseph Post. “Everything requires more energy to stay warm. Every day that goes by it requires more energy.”
Baker says there is plenty of energy for Missouri and Kansas, but the extreme cold which has drifted south into states such as Texas put additional strain on the power grid, making it difficult to keep up with demand. It triggered an energy emergency alert from the Southwest Power Pool. Evergy is part of the pool which covers 17 states.
Approximately 170,000 Evergy customers lost power during the temporary power outages, which lasted between half an hour to an hour.
“What we’re trying to avoid with these temporary blackouts is so we can avoid those longer blackouts and larger outages that people are seeing right now in the state of Texas, millions of people without power,” according to Baker. “Taking people off in small blocks, we’re trying to avoid that and avoid that situation that they’re seeing down south.”
The region's coldest weather in decades is creating a high demand for electricity. It's also driving high demand for natural gas, straining the gas supply available to generate electricity.
Evergy began the rolling blackouts Monday afternoon to conserve energy.
Evergy is encouraging customers to turn their thermostats a little cooler, between 65-68 degrees. They also ask that you avoid using space heaters. You should also close blinds and shades to reduce the amount of heat lost through windows.
Tommy Rezac contributed to this story.