Early Wednesday, February 2, 2011, DFW experienced a massive power outage without warning.
ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, has ordered utilities companies to begin rotating electrical outages to compensate for a power shortage linked to the extreme cold weather.
Oncor's Twitter says "ERCOT has listed a Level 3 warning for Texas. Demand has exceeded generation capacity throughout Texas, so ERCOT has asked us to shed load to comply. Rolling blackouts are at direction of state grid operator ERCOT until they tell us otherwise. Sorry to inconvenience you."
The order took effect Wednesday morning without warning. Yesterday's sleet and snow storm hit Texas and power usage is at record levels.
Consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use. ERCOT had no timetable for when the rotating outages would end. The ERCOT region includes Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, Abilene and the Rio Grande Valley. ERCOT manages the flow of electricity to about 22 million Texas customers. Rotating outages are defined as "controlled, temporary interruptions of electric service, typically lasting 10-45 minutes per neighborhood." Critical need customers, such as hospitals and nursing homes, are generally excluded from outages.
If your power has been out for more than 45 minutes, please call 1-888-313-4747.
Oncor customers are being directly affected as well as CoServ.
"The locations and durations are determined by the local utilities,” ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark said in a statement. “It is not known at this time how long the need for rotating outages will last,” according to the Austin American Statesman.
“Without this safety valve, generators would overload and begin shutting down to avoid damage, risking a domino effect of a region-wide outage,” ERCOT said. “Consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use to the lowest level possible.”
Because there was no warning, people were stuck on DART as a result of the power outage, according to reports. An About.com reader in McKinney emailed me saying that she had no power for four hours.
ERCOT is urging consumers and businesses to follow these steps:
* Limit electricity usage to only that consumption which is absolutely necessary. Turn off all unnecessary lights, appliances and electronic equipment.
* Businesses should minimize the use of electric lighting and electricity-consuming equipment as much as possible.
* Large consumers of electricity should consider shutting down or reducing non-essential production processes.
Some DFW residents did not lose power. One resident said he lives near a fire department and hospital and he's had power all morning.
Due to my own personal power outage, About.com fashion writer Cindi Nellis contributed to this report.
