CPS Energy: “We have made significant improvements in our systems”

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — As colder temperatures and the holiday season loom, CPS Energy discussed changes made to ensure that residents will not be without power in the event of an energy emergency.

CPS Energy officials said yesterday that the utility has worked to address the company’s load-shedding problems that left many San Antonians in the dark for hours after the Energy Reliability Council of Texas ordered rolling blackouts across the state.

The load-shedding problem experienced in February came down to the fact that CPS Energy did not have enough circuits available to meet the utility’s load-shedding need to more evenly spread the rolling blackouts. Barham said the company has added 100 to 150 additional circuits to the CPS Energy load shed routine in the time since the storm.

“We have made significant improvements in our systems and the capacity for our ability to manage load shed where it has just, hopefully, the most minimal impact on our customers,” CPS Energy Chief Grid Optimization and Resiliency Officer Paul Barham said. “The target is 15 minute outages for a customer, followed by some period of hopefully hours of having power will be the design.”

Barham said that 15 minute window of no power in the event of an energy emergency should be “the worst of it.”