Articles tagged Blackouts

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process.

Mexico’s recent widespread blackouts serve as a warning in failed policies for the current and incoming governments, but solutions are available, experts said Thursday. 

Widespread blackouts in early May across 21 of Mexico’s 32 states are a troubling sign ahead of summer months, which is when the nation’s electricity demand peaks, according to three industry experts who spoke with NGI’s Mexico GPI.

Widespread blackouts in Mexico earlier this week hit 21 states and sent the electric power system into emergency status – but the natural gas market was largely unimpeded.

A failure for state agencies to conduct integrated planning and miscalculating natural gas supplies contributed to California’s rolling power blackouts during a severe heat storm last August, according to a multi-agency report.

California’s grid operator this week brushed off recent FERC staff criticism of its handling of last summer’s heat wave that resulted in state-ordered rolling blackouts throughout the nation’s most populous state last Aug. 14-15.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) overestimated the capacity available from demand response and renewables during a period of rolling power outages in August, FERC staff said during a presentation Thursday.

Last week's freezing temperatures in the Southwest, which froze some natural gas wells in Texas' Barnett Shale and caused rolling blackouts in much of the state, were the most severe test of Texas natural gas deliverability since the winter of 1989, a reliability council representative told the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) Tuesday.

Rolling blackouts are generally considered a scourge of hot summer days when electricity demand for air conditioning pushes generation and transmission beyond capacity. However, electric utilities that rely on gas-fired generators are vulnerable during the winter due to the potential for gas well freeze-offs. Xcel Energy and some of its Colorado customers found this out over the holiday weekend.

Rolling blackouts are generally considered a scourge of hot summer days when electricity demand for air conditioning pushes generation and transmission beyond capacity. However, electric utilities that rely on gas-fired generators are vulnerable during the winter due to the potential for gas well freeze-offs. Xcel Energy and some of its Colorado customers found this out over the holiday weekend.