who got their electricity cut off yesterday for a few minutes? at first, i thought it was our breaker. then, i saw a few neighbors walk outside. figured everyone was screwed. blackouts for summer are gonna suck. i guess this is karma for what Enron did to California.
Me. Got home from work around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Cranked up the AC, cranked on the stereo, turned on the PC and dialed up the internet. At 4:45.....BZEEEEEEEW electricity shut off. Spent 15 minutes trying to call Centerpoint Customer Service, nothing but busy signals. At 5:00 PM...BZUUUUWEEEEP electricity back on and RMT spends the next 10 minutes running around the house resetting clocks, alarms and the telephone answering machine. I believe it is Enron karma, and I hope it helps convince the jury to convict Skilling and Lay (aka Swilling and Lie), take away all of their money and send them to prison for the rest of their lives!
Oh snap, this was city wide? I thought it was because some city workers were digging around in right behind our neighbors house.
Apparently it is somewhat state-wide. There are several large grids that are being effected by this. Places all over the state went through the rolling blackouts, including Houston areas and Dallas areas. Thankfully my energy co. (Entergy) is not part of the grid!
Yeah it was state-wide. I think they said on the news to expect it again today. EDIT: Yep today too. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3800112.html April 18, 2006, 4:32AM Rolling blackouts as Texas heats up The emergency measure might be repeated today during peak hours By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Hundreds of thousands of Texans went without power for brief periods Monday afternoon as unseasonably warm weather and both planned and unplanned power plant outages led officials to call for rolling blackouts. Shortly after 4 p.m. Monday, officials with the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, the organization that monitors the power network for about 85 percent of the state, declared an emergency and asked power distributors to turn off about 1,000 megawatts of power. The cuts were spread throughout the state, with Houston-based CenterPoint Energy cutting power for 15-minute intervals on the power lines it operates to as many as 78,000 customers, according to spokeswoman Leticia Lowe. In Dallas, about 80,000 TXU Electric Delivery customers saw their power go out for 15-minute intervals, said spokeswoman Carol Peters. One megawatt powers about 210 homes, according to TXU, meaning the 1,000 megawatts of rolling outages likely impacted the equivalent of 210,000 homes. The typical daily usage for Texas in April is about 40,000 megawatts, but the state pushed 52,000 megawatts on Monday, said ERCOT spokesman Paul Wattles. By 6:15 p.m., ERCOT declared the emergency over and stopped the rolling blackouts. With more warm weather expected today there could be a repeat performance when power use peaks sometime between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., warned Wattles. The high for the day is expected to hit 91 in Houston. "We're doing all we can to avoid this same situation, but we're asking for voluntary conservation measures statewide," he said. Suggested measures include turning thermostats up, turning off unneeded lights and avoiding use of non-essential electric equipment and appliances. While the rolling blackouts were an inconvenience to many, Wattles said they help avoid uncontrolled blackouts that could effect more customers for a longer period of time. A combination of factors led to the emergency Monday. April and October are the two so-called "shoulder months," periods of mild weather when power plant operators schedule annual maintenance. A large percentage of the 77,000 megawatt-generating capacity within the ERCOT system can be unavailable at those times. Usually that isn't a problem at this time of year, but with temperatures reaching 100 degrees in parts of the state and 89 in Houston, power demand spiked beyond expectations. The normal high in Houston this time of year is 79 degrees. The record, 92 degrees, was hit in 1987, according to Weather Central, and the city is expected to hit 91 today. ERCOT officials knew earlier in the day Monday there would be a spike in demand, so at 3 p.m. they made a request to power producers to fire up all the spare capacity they could. In the Houston area that meant operators of plants run by NRG Texas, formerly known as TexasGenco, activated between 1,000 megawatts and 1,500 megawatts of capacity that were not scheduled to run, according to spokesman Joe Householder. That request was not enough, so at 4 p.m. ERCOT asked for users with interruptible load agreement, primarily industrial power users who can stop using power on short notice, to make available some 1,150 megawatts of their demand for the rest of the system. Taking this second step is rare — the last time ERCOT drew on interruptible loads was August 1999 — but it usually prevents the need for further measures. At about 4:05 p.m., however, four power units at plants throughout Central and North Texas unexpectedly went out of service, according to ERCOT. This took about 920 megawatts of power off the grid suddenly, creating the need for the rolling blackouts. ERCOT would not name the owners of the power plants, but a Texas Public Utility Commission spokesman said the units were owned by CPS Energy in San Antonio and TXU Energy in Dallas. Officials with those companies could not be reached for comment.
it's not going to be all summer. it's because of higher temps than normal for April. they're not geared up for that sort of demand in April. it was 102 yesterday in Dallas. roughly the temperature of hell...which, of course, is perfect for Dallas. the power at my house went out about 5:45 or so. lasted for right at about 10-15 minutes.
I was right in the middle of doing my ninja exercises when BLAP! No AC, no lights, and I dropped my nunchucks on my toes. I then crouched in the corner and prepared to pull a leg sweep on any Pirate lurking in the shadows. That's how I roll. Don't tread on me.
I was at class downtown when it happened but my mom said it happened on our side of town. It sucks cause I set the VCR to record Prison Break and the blackout messed it all up
Same thing started happening in California after they deregulated the energy companies. Then when we voted to deregulate our officials said it wouldn't happen here because we learned from what was happening in California. Now it's happening here. Energy costs are through the roof already. Gas prices continue to skyrocket. This summer is going to be hell on a lot of people and it's not going to get any better anytime soon. I'm thinking of selling all my stuff buying a plot of land digging a well, planting a garden, buying some solar pannels and batteries and dropping off the grid.
I just wished they would leave traffic lights alone. At about 5:00 p.m., Park Row and HW6 was a mess, and so were most other major intersections nearby. Why can't they do the blackouts without affecting the lights? Well, if anything DID happen, we'd have a bunch of playmates and pets hot and sweaty, won't we? And we wouldn't want that to happen now, would we, Heff?
Yeah, they had power outages roll through Austin too. This blows. I don't tolerate such things very well.
kevin federline lives in a 20 million dollar mansion yo! i just pray that the blackouts dont hit louisianna and prevent k-fed from working on his music. how's a G supposed to perfect his art if he dont have electricity? electric company is just like the paparazzi that cant get off k-feds nutz - straight hatin' yo!
I had it happen to me with my HDTV on. That thing needs a warm-down period so, when the electricity cuts off like that, it can screw it up. My first thought was "terrorist attack". I was thinking terrorists attacked our power grids in preparation for their subsequent attacks. That's pretty sad that was my first thought.
Its freakin April and already 90+ degrees! Wait until July.... The best thing to do is switch to a cheaper electricity provider. I switched to Stream Energy last month, which is about 10% cheaper than Reliant. All you need is your EIS ID from your Reliant electricity bill to switch, and you can do it all online. Check current rates here Sign up for Steam here
I didn't notice any blackout, but now that I think about it, the clock on my microwave was all jacked up when I got home.
I was on my computer and I was right in the middle of looking at p*rn and mastur....uh, checking how my mutual funds did for the day. I was right about to.....uh, let's just say rollover some funds when it happened.
