Recent Weather Has Stressed Energy Grids Across the Nation

Monday, January 23rd, 2023 -- 9:01 AM

(By Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio) Catherine Bresser had canceled plans to travel from Milwaukee to Detroit for Christmas because she didn’t want to risk getting caught in a potential snowstorm.

According to Danielle Kaeding with Wisconsin Public Radio, that meant she was stuck at home when We Energies asked customers to lower their thermostats to around 60 degrees amid roaring winds and freezing cold on Dec. 23.

"I'd rather have 60-degree heat than no heat," Bresser said, who already keeps her home at 62 degrees to keep energy bills down. "I guess there were pipeline issues. I don’t know. I'm always leery of when a huge company puts the onus of the problem on the customer instead of taking responsibility."

We Energies made the request of customers after one of its suppliers, the Guardian pipeline, experienced an equipment failure. That resulted in a shortage of 30 percent of the gas promised to the utility.

We Energies secured extra gas, and customers helped stabilize the system by conserving energy. The utility lifted its request the next day, and no customers lost heat. "In the end, we were able to kind of keep everything up and running and avoid any kind of worst case scenarios," We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said.

The stretch of extreme cold reduced natural gas output nationwide as wells and pipes froze, according to Bloomberg. That prompted utilities from Texas to New York City to make similar conservation requests of customers to protect supply.

It's important customers heed a utility’s calls for conservation when there’s an outage or shortage, according to Line Roald, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Roald said the natural gas system relies on maintaining enough pressure or gas within pipelines to avoid air leaking into them, which can lead to explosions. Pressure in pipes may drop if there’s not enough supply and people continue to use gas, increasing concern over the system’s ability to operate safely.

"The utilities do their utmost best to avoid this. But, in a very extreme scenario where if people don't heed those warnings, and they are not able to actually get people to conserve, we could essentially lose gas supply," Roald said. "And then it can take a long time to restore."

Utilities are facing mounting concerns over reliability as extreme weather has threatened natural gas supplies and the power grid. As cold constrained natural gas supplies, utilities across the country also struggled to provide enough power around the Christmas holiday, resulting in rolling blackouts for some customers in Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Prior to the cold stretch, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation released an assessment in November that warned the North American grid is at risk of insufficient energy supplies during severe winter weather. It urged utilities to secure fuel supplies and weatherize natural gas facilities.

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