HARLINGEN — The Rio Grande Valley’s power outages will continue for as long as a week as a state agency restricts AEP Texas’ electrical output.
On Wednesday, 131,000 homes across the Valley remained without power as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, ordered AEP to cut more power, Eladio Jaimez, a company spokesman, said.
“They just ordered more load to be dropped this morning,” he said, referring to the agency managing the state’s power grid. “The outages will continue throughout the week.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Chris Boswell, warning the power outages could continue for as long as a week, said AEP is working on a plan aimed at restoring power to homes while cutting electricity to other homes.
“They’re working on a plan to restore power to people who’ve been out the longest but that will mean (other) people will be without power,” he said. “All they can do is shift.”
On Tuesday, the company began “rotating” outages, Jaimez said.
“We have rotated some of the outages,” he said. “But continued challenges on the grid due to insufficient generation is making rotating outages difficult.”
AEP ‘rotating’ outages
Across the state, customers question the reason the company doesn’t interrupt power to homes in order to restore electricity to homes that have been without power.
“We are rotating outages on a very limited basis to allow restoration to some critical services customers and groups of customers who have been without power since early Monday morning or before,” the company states in a press release. “These rotations will increase as power generation increases.”
Focus on ‘critical services’
Now, AEP is focusing on restoring power to “critical services” such as hospitals and water and sewer plants, the company states in its press release.
On Wednesday, the company restored power to 3,000 customers it described as offering “critical services.”
“Our primary focus is on critical services facilities such as hospitals, water and sewer plants as well as customers who have been without power the longest amount of time,” Jeff Stracener, the company’s vice president of distribution region operations, stated.
“We continue to explore any and all opportunities to restore power to customers, even as the generation shortage continues,” he stated. “The number of customers we are able to restore will be limited but we remain committed to providing relief where possible. We still are awaiting ERCOT’s directive to begin full restoration but do not have an indication when that will be given.”
‘Unprecedented’ orders to cut power
ERCOT has demanded AEP cut “unprecedented” amounts of power from the state’s electric grid, the press release states.
“AEP Texas is required by ERCOT to shed the directed amount of load in order to maintain the stability of the system,” the press release states. “The amount of load shed in this emergency has been unprecedented. There is limited availability of other circuits to shed, or electricity to move, thus preventing us from restoring load for most of the customers that remain out of power.”
Why neighbors have power
Across the state, many customers question the reason their homes remain blacked out while their neighbors’ houses have power.
“Those customers may be on a different circuit that was not impacted by the outages,” the company’s press release states.
