Has Texas ever had rolling blackouts before? (move, electricity)

[SCGAFL]

...or are these the first time this has happened?

[Arkay66]

Yes, Texas has had rolling blackouts before. Usually it's in the summer, which is when the biggest load hits the system. Winter-wise, happened in 2011, 2001, and earlier, but I don't recall those dates.

[bluescreen73]

Is the Pope Catholic? Many Texas cities have rolling blackouts every time there's a long-lasting heat wave.

[C24L]

Yes Texas had had rolling blackouts before but they are typically in the summers.

[Westerner92]

Yes, my roommates when I first moved to Colorado commented how it was odd that I didn't think to set the microwave/oven/coffee maker clocks. I was just so used to them always getting reset by power flickers every couple days.

[sparkman75229]

Rolling blackouts can happen like now, but are generally not common. I have never once had to reset anything because of some mythical power flicker.

Texas has grown very fast and it take a while to build power plants. Yes, we could have planned better.

[elnina]

Originally Posted by sparkman75229

Rolling blackouts can happen like now, but are generally not common. I have never once had to reset anything because of some mythical power flicker.

I don't remember it either.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

I think they are attempting to transition to rolling blackouts

[jackalope48]

Yeah this ain't "rolling blackouts" it's blackouts.

[astrohip]

Originally Posted by jackalope48

Yeah this ain't "rolling blackouts" it's blackouts.

Actually, there is a difference.

First, I assume you're poking fun at the fact it doesn't seem to be "rolling away", just "rolling in and staying". And you are correct, it's not really rolling away much.

But the reason they roll power, or in our case, cut it and don't bring it back quickly, is because demand is much higher than capacity/supply.

Quick electricity supply lesson: If you have too many meters asking for too much juice, there are two options...

1) You can cut the supply to some meters, or entire groups of meters (AKA rolling blackouts), until such time as you have more juice to send. To be fair, you should move those cut-off meters around, cutting off some of them for an hour, then restoring and cutting a different group for a while. This is the true definition of a "rolling blackout".

2) If you choose NOT to cut some meters, if the demand just overwhelms the supply, the system will trip, and everywhere loses power. Think of it like a circuit breaker. It literally can't send that much power down the lines, so it either fails totally, or starts sending lower voltage power. The first is a total blackout, the second is what they call a brownout.

A blackout is what hit the East Coast a few years back. Just. Went. Dark. All at once, millions of people without juice, no warning, no options. You do NOT want that.

A brownout is just as bad in its own way. Lower voltage can cause irreversible damage to much of our electrical infrastructure. That's why they cut power to sections at a time, rather than sending lower power to all.

None of this excuses the situation we're in. But hopefully it helps you understand why the rolling blackouts. Even if they didn't really "roll".