An estimated 1.7 million businesses and homes faced power outages on Christmas Day this year, as the U.S. power grid faced an onslaught of pressure from surging heating demands.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides power for 10 million people, said on Dec. 23 that demand was nearly 35% higher than average, necessitating the electricity giant to implement rolling blackouts temporarily.
More than 6,000 megawatts of power generation, or nearly 20% of its load, was lost by TVA at one point last week after its Cumberland Fossil Plant went offline, in addition to problems at other gas-generating units.
On Wednesday, TVA issued an official statement apologizing for the power outages and pledged to undergo an internal review of how to respond better to extreme weather conditions.
"This is not the way we want to serve our communities and customers," the company stated, adding that it is "committed to sharing these lessons learned and ... the corrective actions we take in the weeks ahead to ensure we are prepared to manage significant events in the future."
Meanwhile, PJM Interconnection, which serves 65 million people in 13 eastern states, faced triple the power plant outages expected. Duke Energy and National Grid asked users to voluntarily conserve energy — with blackouts also eventually being used.
But most of the troubles weren't caused by a lack of preparation by electrical providers. More often than not, they stemmed from severe weather freezing wells and pipes and rendering machinery unusable, Vox noted.
The U.S. has "failed to build more important infrastructure throughout our energy system," journalist Rebecca Leber reported. "More energy storage, distributed power generation, interconnections across the major power grids, redundancy, and demand response are all needed."
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