Regional Energy Emergency Level 3 Declared

The Southwestern Power Pool (SPP) has declared an energy emergency due to scarce electricity resources in our region. They are asking for all industrial, commercial, and residential customers to conserve electricity and natural gas as much as possible.  This is in an effort to reduce the load on the power grid and prevent rolling brown-outs throughout the region.

At Energy Emergency Level 3, which was declared at 10am this morning, the SPP can reduce loads through temporary service interruptions.  We will not know if and when these interruptions might occur, SPP has provided us only with the declaration notice.  The City of Mangum does have the limited ability to provide electricity to the city.  Since midnight Friday the Power Plant has been generating, currently we are generating about 1/3 of our capacity, should the SPP do a service interruption we will ramp up as much as safely possible.  As we reported last week, the plant does not have the capacity to carry the town under normal circumstances, we can only provide about 90% of a normal winter load, it will be even worse as the temperatures drop below zero and there is more demand placed on the grid.  We are asking that you please do your best to conserve power and natural gas.  Conservation efforts should not be at the risk of your health or safety, but if you could hold off on laundry for 2 more days, wash dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher, or lower the thermostat one or two degrees, collectively, it could make a huge difference.  Every little change that you make adds up with the little changes from your neighbors, eventually amounting to a large conservation effort.   

Customers are asked to take these conservation requests seriously. You can take the following steps to conserve energy:

• Set thermostats lower than usual, if health permits

• Postpone using major electric appliances such as dishwashers, and clothes dryers until the demand for electricity and natural gas decreases

• Turn off electric lights and unplug appliances that you do not need or are not using, and

• Keep doors, windows and blinds shut to retain heat in houses

Energy emergency alerts are due to a number of factors resulting from widespread, long-lasting and extreme cold weather. These factors include, but are not limited to, high electricity use across the entire SPP system, inadequate supply and high prices of natural gas, and low supply of wind generation and wind-forecast uncertainty.

To make it clear, we are not asking you to risk your health or safety, we are asking that you make little changes to conserve what energy you can.