We received a text from the EMS saying that the TVA is having trouble meeting demand and has asked the EMCs to “curtail their load.” Shortly after that, the power went down. I imagine that Blue Ridge Mountain EMC turned it off. The EMS says to expect “brief outages until at least midnight.” They also ask everyone to conserve power. Well, that’s easy when they turn it off. It’s about 8 degrees outside, with a stiff wind.
From the BREMC Facebook page:
“Attention BRMEMC Consumers: BRMEMC’s generation and transmission provider, TVA, has implemented Step 50 of its Emergency Load Curtailment Plan (ELCP) which requires temporary interruption of general firm load. This step is necessary due to an unforeseen generation supply challenge impacting the entire service area that is compromising TVA’s ability to deliver firm load electricity to all consumers. TVA is calling for activation of this step effective from 10:31 a.m. EDT today. We are unsure of the duration of this step at this time, but TVA is diligently working to stabilize the grid and restore necessary generation and transmission. We anticipate no less than two (2) hours of these temporary interruptions of general firm load. Please help conserve energy by reducing some of the power being used within your homes, offices, businesses, and etc.
Activation of Step 50 means that TVA is curtailing 5% of general firm load which includes residential, small commercial, large commercial and industrial customers across the Tennessee Valley in order to ensure grid stability and resiliency. TVA hopes that through these partial curtailments they will be able to realize system load reductions that will restore full grid stability. By the time TVA activates Step 50, many other actions have already been taken which have not achieved the desired grid stability goal. We will notify all customers as soon as this curtailment is cancelled and full service to all general firm load customers is restored.”