The unexpected power outages that hit the Front Range over the bitterly cold weekend had real-life consequences and merit close scrutiny. Xcel Energy, which provides heat and power to metro Denver, says it pulled the plug on 300,000 customers for a half-hour Saturday morning during controlled, rolling blackouts. However, Xcel acknowledges that 25,000 customers lost power for as long as five hours. It’s unclear whether the longer outages correlated with reports of water pipes freezing and damaging homes, but in any case, the breadth and length of the blackouts – and the secrecy that surrounded it – were unacceptable.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission should be asking tough questions. On Thursday, it will hear from Xcel, but a superficial inquiry isn’t enough. These were not isolated incidents where the lights momentarily blinked out, but purposeful outages that shouldn’t recur with every cold snap.
Ironically, the power losses took place just two weeks before the PUC is to hold hearings on Xcel’s request to be released from service quality standards. Existing rules allow the PUC to fine Xcel millions of dollars if blackouts exceed certain limits – and very likely, on Saturday those limits got busted like frozen pipes.
Xcel says several factors combined to create this weekend’s woes. Temperatures were predicted to stay above zero but instead plunged to minus-13 degrees. The company scrambled to find more natural gas, but no additional fuel was available. Then problems struck a coal-fired plant. At that point, Xcel decided to use rolling blackouts to prevent electrical outages that might cascade across the entire Western power grid. In 2003 a cascading event in Ohio knocked out power as far away as New York, New Jersey and Canada.
Xcel’s explanation raises several questions for the PUC: How reliable is the state’s electrical grid? Does Colorado have access to adequate fuel supplies? Why not warn customers when blackouts loom? These questions go beyond just Xcel.
In the past, the PUC has investigated various power outages, but the industry will be watching to see its reaction this week. Commission chair Greg Sopkin and staff chief Doug Dean are advocates of industry deregulation and we hope their deregulatory zest doesn’t lead the PUC to a lethargic response. The PUC exists to protect Colorado ratepayers – and when 300,000 are the victim of a voluntary outage, we need to know if something can be done to improve the system, or if under similar circumstances households will get notice of a pending blackout and have a chance to prepare.
