Planned power outages across KC metro could last through early afternoon, Evergy says
Update: As of 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, the order for controlled power outages was suspended. Evergy said power should be back online shortly.
Temporary emergency power outages could continue through Tuesday afternoon in Kansas City in an attempt to avoid a “catastrophic” uncontrolled blackout that could leave people without power for hours, if not longer, Evergy officials said during a briefing Tuesday morning.
Southwest Power Pool, which manages the electrical grid across 17 central and western United States, including the Kansas City area, declared an energy emergency about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday saying that system-wide power generating capacity had dropped below the demand for power due to extremely low temperatures and inadequate supplies of natural gas.
“This is the second time in Southwest Power Pool history, the second time in two days that they have done this because of unprecedented cold and extended extreme weather,” Chuck Caisley, Evergy senior vice president and chief customer officer, said during a news conference Tuesday morning.
The power grid emergency was announced as temperatures across Southwest Power Pool’s 14-state territory dropped to the coldest they’ve ever been, measuring at -20 and -28 degrees at many of their power plants, Caisley said.
Wind chills overnight Monday into Tuesday were around -20 degrees in Kansas City. As of about 7 a.m. Tuesday, the temperature at the Kansas City International Airport measured at -10 degrees.
At roughly 7 a.m. Tuesday, Evergy began initiating temporary emergency power outages that could last between 30 and 90 minutes as they did Monday afternoon, Caisley said. It’s possible for households to be affected by planned outage more than once.
“The best thing we can tell people is to try and be patient,” Caisley said. “We know this is a very difficult circumstance; we know temperatures are extreme. We know that even 30 to 60 or 90 minutes is something that is daunting for people.”
As of 9 a.m., about 170,000 Evergy customers, or 10% of customers, had had their power interrupted or turned off, he said. With the continued outages, Caisley estimated as many as 25% of Evergy customers could be impacted by the temporary outages.
He said while there were planned outages on Presidents Day, there is more urgency to reduce power usage Tuesday as people resume work and school. Drivers were urged to use caution while out on the roads because power outages could cause traffic lights and Kansas City Scout’s digital message boards to go dark, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Kansas City District.
Meanwhile, Kansas City Streetcar was using two RideKC buses to provide service on the streetcar route after ice buildup on the tracks.
“The #kcstreetcar team is hard at work clearing the ice buildup in the trackway by hand,” Kansas City Streetcar said on Twitter. “There are two @RideKCTransit ‘streetcar link’ buses running the route while crews work to clear the tracks.”
At 11 a.m., the streetcar sent a rider alert saying the tracks had been cleared of the excessive ice and that the streetcar service had returned.
Caisley said it’s almost impossible to tell customers when and where the planned outages will happen, as Evergy has little notice of the necessary outages themselves. But, he said, they work to exclude critical infrastructure, such as hospitals. medical buildings and COVID-19 vaccine sites from being affected. They also spread the outages out between both rural and urban areas to keep the grid as balanced as possible.
Anyone who experiences an outage longer than 90 minutes is asked to contact Evergy.
Evergy is still asking customer to continue reducing their power usage through Wednesday afternoon or evening by avoiding unnecessary electricity use, shutting blinds to keep heat in, turning down thermostats and stop running dishwashers and washing machines if possible.
Caisley said while Evergy power plants are up and running, some power plants in Oklahoma and Iowa have gone down because of the cold. While there’s enough power supply to meet the demands of Evergy customers, he said, the power is being shared across the entire multi-state grid. As of Tuesday there was a significant amount of power moving north to south to meet southern electical demands.
If the grid destabilizes, Caisley said, it can cause uncontrolled blackouts such as those in Texas where between four and five million people are now without power.
“We know that this is very cold weather, we know that this is extremely frustrating and believe us, we would not be calling for these temporary power outages if they were not required by the Southwest power pool, if they weren’t necessary to prevent a larger longer more prolonged outage,” he said.
Other electric companies throughout the region are taking measures of caution, too.
“We are doing them (rolling blackouts) as we speak,” David E. Mehlhaff, chief communications officer for the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities, said Tuesday morning.
He said the first of the blackouts, which are expected to last about 40 minutes each, occurred in the legends area.
The BPU anticipates that the rolling blackouts will be occurring throughout the day until they hear otherwise from the Southwest Power Pool.
“Yesterday we had a total of 1,200 customers that were impacted,” Mehlhaff said. “Right now, we’ve got 3,100 people out.”
Southwest Power Pool declared an energy emergency about 6:15 a.m. saying that system-wide power generating capacity had dropped below the demand for power due to extremely low temperatures and inadequate supplies of natural gas.
“We’ll be working with our member utilities to implement controlled interruptions of electric service throughout our region,” the company said. “This is done as a last resort to preserve the reliability of the electric system as a whole.”
Southwest Power Pool urged customers to conserve energy and follow their local utilities instructions regarding the potential for outages to their homes and businesses.
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 10:42 AM.
