Rolling electrical blackouts rippled across the Midwest Monday while the region shivered in an arctic blast and suddenly found itself short on electrical power. Record-cold temperatures across the region led to an extraordinary winter demand and a limited supply of electricity across the central United States. To prevent a major uncontrolled power outage, the regional grid operator known as the Southwest Power Pool asked utilities mid-day to begin rolling blackouts. The request lasted about an hour. While cold temperatures increased demand, they also hurt utilities’ ability to crank out electricity. Some wind turbines got knocked out of commission by freezing fog. Power plants couldn’t crank out their usual electrical output because of freezing coal stacks. Natural gas-burning electrical plants had equipment malfunctions while the price of fuel skyrocketed as much as 150 times the normal wholesale price as people cranked up their furnaces to fight off the chill of sub-zero temperatures.
Source: KCUR News