MO, KS among states impacted by rolling power outages as record cold seizes region

Thousands of electrical customers throughout Kansas City and Independence experienced rolling service outages on Monday afternoon as the result of extreme cold weather conditions that have created a high demand for electricity.

The controlled outages began Monday just after noon. Individual customers of Independence Power & Light were without electrical service experienced outages for about 30 minutes. The service disruptions would affect about 2,000 customers at a time, said Meg Lewis, spokeswoman with the city of Independence.

The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities said it too began rolling blackouts to blocks of its customers, which lasted about 40 minutes, the utility said in a press release. Power was restored after that, but the utility said that outages could rotate to another part of BPU’s service area as long as the emergency outages are needed.

The request was made by the Southwest Power Pool, a power consortium that provides service to a 17-state region across the central United States that includes Independence and the much of the Kansas City region, it said.

“We as well as some of our regional partners have been participating in the rolling outages,” Lewis said. “We do not know how long these will be requested and may be intermittent as the power level ebbs and flows throughout the day.”

Evergy asked customers to conserve electricity use “as much as possible” until Wednesday to avoid possible power outages. In a press release on Sunday, the company said the region experiencing the, “coldest weather in decades,” made electricity shortages possible.

On Monday, Evergy began to turn off electricity to blocks of customers for up to 60 minutes. Once the period has concluded, electrical service power would be restored to the impacted areas, the company said in a press release.

The company said on Twitter that roughly 60,000 customers were without power for some 30 minutes.

“The emergency outages will then rotate to another portion of Evergy’s service area. Power will cycle off and on periodically until the reduction is no longer required by the SPP. With these extreme cold temperatures, equipment may not operate as intended. As a result, outages could last longer than 30 - 60 minutes,” according to the press release.

The company has advised customers to set their thermostats between 68 and 65 degrees and turn off unnecessary lights, among other things.

The BPU urged residents not to report their outages unless they last longer than 40 minutes. Anyone having an outage longer than 40 minutes was told to report it at www.bpu.com or call 913-573-9522.

“Everybody must do their part to save electricity the next few days and this in turn will help us make sure the power supply continues to best serve the region’s needs,” David Mehlhaff, BPU chief communications officer said in the release.

Temperatures on Monday dipped to 10-degrees below zero. Conditions on Tuesday are expected to worsen when the forecast calls for temperatures to fall to 15-degrees below zero, according to FOX4 meteorologist Michelle Bogowith.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas tweeted Monday that the service interruptions has impacted the power grid from Missouri and Kansas to points south through Texas.

In addition to lower thermostates, the BPU urged people to:

▪ Close blinds and shades to reduce the amount of heat lost through the windows.

▪ Make sure they have clean filters on furnaces.

▪ Turn off unnecessary lights and appliances.

▪ Use clothes washers, dryers and dishwashers between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

▪ Reduce air leaks around doors and windows.

Lewis advised customers take precautions and conservation efforts to protect themselves during the cold temperatures.

“So a 20 to 30 minute outages should not have a significant impact on anything like their refrigeration or other such things,” she said. “We’re hopeful that when the temperatures increase across the region, then it’ll help things.”

“This is sort of a Midwest wide issue with the impact of cold weather and winter storms throughout the area.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2021 at 2:23 PM.