RALEIGH, N.C. – Duke Energy and other electricity providers moved to rolling outages across North and South Carolina for several hours Saturday morning in an effort to protect the power grid as low temperatures drove high demand.
Duke Energy and Blue Ridge Energy announced around midday Saturday that the temporary halts had ended and that efforts were focusing on restoring power.
Afternoon temperatures across most of North Carolina remained below freezing under clear skies.
Utilities announced the short power cuts Saturday morning after temperatures plunged Friday because of an “arctic blast” winter storm moving across the nation that has snarled holiday travel and caused widespread outages centered on North Carolina and Tennessee.
The arctic air was expected to make Christmas Eve one of the coldest in North Carolina in more than 30 years.
As the cold air swept in Friday morning, tens of thousands of power outages were reported across the state. Although service was restored to many by Friday night, the number of outages surged Saturday morning.
At 8:30 a.m., more than 450,000 customers were without power in North Carolina, according to the outage tracking site poweroutage.us. That number fell to over 250,000 outages as of about 1:15 p.m., and by 7 p.m., just over 22,000 outages were reported.
The outages were part of a wider pattern across the eastern United States that hit North Carolina and Tennessee particularly hard, the site reported Saturday morning on social media.
Blue Ridge Energy, which serves 78,000 customers in several counties in western North Carolina, announced an end to the rolling power cuts before noon Saturday. The temporary, one-hour outages were in response to a "generation capacity emergency caused by the extreme cold," the utility stated Saturday morning in a news release.
The measure came after a request from Duke Energy to reduce power demand and avert instability on the regional power grid, Blue Ridge stated.
Both utilities on Saturday urged residents to conserve energy as below-freezing temperatures were projected to continue Sunday.
Blue Ridge suggested the following steps to conserve power:
- Turn on only needed appliances
- Lower thermostat settings
- Reduce water heater temperatures to 120 degrees
- Delay dishwashing and clothes washing
- Minimize use of lights
Duke Energy and Duke Energy Progress are the biggest electricity providers in the state and serve millions of customers.