What last week's cold snap did to the power grid.
“This is the kind of event that grid people talk about as a stress event. […] It was a really big cold event that started on the westside and moved east, breaking temperature and demand records all across North America.” […] But the lights stayed on, and while there were dozens of issues on distribution lines and some transmission lines went out during the storm, there were no major resource shortages. […] Much of the credit for that goes to the Federal Columbia River Power System, which was “maxing out.” [….] For example, Portland General Electric’s 1,067 MW wind portfolio provided zero energy throughout the duration of the winter storm, which was followed by a massive ice storm in Oregon. PGE’s balancing authority ran on hydroelectricity and natural gas during this time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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