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by gwoplock 1948 days ago
Yes. https://spp.org/markets-operations/current-grid-conditions/

> Feb. 16 at 6:15 a.m. SPP declared an EEA Level 3. System-wide generating capacity had dropped below current load of approximately 42 gigawatts (GW) due to extremely low temperatures, inadequate supplies of natural gas and wind generation. SPP directed member utilities to implement controlled, temporary interruptions of service.
2 comments
kadoban 1948 days ago
That sounds like rolling blackouts, and looking at it deeper looks a lot like a few minutes worth. That's not great, but it's not the same as being without power for multiple days.
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Throwawayaerlei 1948 days ago
Looking in my area of the SPP, they were scheduled to be one hour long, "call us if your power is out longer, especially after 90 minutes."

That's just for residential customers, commercial and industrial customers were required to shed a great deal of their load; for half a work day according to one report I read of someone who what sent home yesterday or so.

Agreed not anything like being without power for multiple days. From what I've gathered so far, the Texas grid operator had the lack of courage required to shed load early before things get catastrophic. After the northeast blackout of 1965 which resulted in a lot of reforms, a common if not nearly universal final cause of these sorts of disasters.

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evgen 1948 days ago
You have suggested this twice as proof of actual rolling blackouts of any significant size, but for some reason fail to note that while SPP did order rolling blackouts to shave about 1.5% of the load within 50 minutes they rescinded this order and returned to EEA Level 2. Why fail to mention this I wonder?
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NortySpock 1948 days ago
(Not the parent poster) At a press conference, a SPP spokesperson said they had to cut up to 6.5% of load for 3h21m on Tuesday (Feb 16).

https://youtu.be/NUa3AKdCYvM?t=693

(Just wanting to set the record straight, under the SPP region myself. Given what I've seen, I'm pretty happy with how they've acted considering it could have looked like Texas. I wish there had been more and better communication with the public about the importance of conserving electricity but it's not like I followed their Twitter feed at the time.)

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evgen 1948 days ago
I know there were a few cuts because that let them get the load down, but when I first heard of blackouts outside of Texas they seemed to be of the 15-30 minute variety. Did not know they lasted more than an hour anywhere.
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