Energy Apologizes // John Hinderaker
Over Christmas, customers of Duke Energy in North and South Carolina experienced rolling blackouts. Although Duke is a decent, its explanation for its own failures is shocking:
Duke Energy executives repeatedly apologised and admitted to the problem that left thousands of people without power in North and South Carolina during the bitter cold snap that occurred just before the Christmas holiday weekend. The North Carolina Utilities Commission heard the admissions Tuesday.
Witnesses before the NCUC stated that high winds had already rendered 300,000 powerless on Dec. 23, before a severe cold snap late that night and into Dec. 24, according to testimony.
The linked story doesn’t explain why 300,000 people were without power due to high winds. This could be due to a failure in wind turbines. They must be shut down when the wind blows too hard.
Julie Janson, executive vice-president and CEO of Duke Energy Carolinas, said, “I want to apologize for what our customers experienced.” “Winter storm Elliott was a very powerful event with a unique combination of high winds, extreme temperatures drops and other conditions that forced our company to reduce power as a last resort.
“Curtailing power” is a term that refers to imposing rolling blackouts upon Duke’s customers. A rolling blackout is an intentional cut to power in a specific area by a utility to prevent the entire grid collapsing.
Bowman stated, “The power we bought did not show up. Therefore, we were confronted by the hard truth that [our] energy [capacity] would soon become obsolete by our [demand],”
Because the conditions were similar in nearby states, the purchased power didn’t work. This is completely predictable.
According to Preston Gillespie (executive vice president and chief generator officer at Duke Energy), the “nuclear fleet” of Duke Energy was reliable during the storm.
Well, yes. It would.
Duke Energy’s “nuclear fleet”, which Duke Energy owned, was reliable. However, solar generation was not able to meet peak demand due to its timing before sunrise.
This is what it would look like! It’s always coldest before dawn, or something similar. Despite the obvious insignificance of solar energy, utilities continue to invest billions in solar panels to reap guaranteed profits at their expense.
Rolling blackouts have begun to become more common. They will only get worse if our country continues to rely on unreliable “green energy”.
