PSC to Investigate Winter Storm Power Problems

Public Service Commission Chairman Craig Greene said once the winter weather has passed the PSC will investigate what went wrong and why power providers had such poor communication with customers.

Greene said we just didn’t have the emergency capacity to keep everyone’s lights on during this historic week of winter weather.

“Do we build more generation, do we have more power available for these once in a hundred-year freezes? Because then we might just be paying a whole lot more than we need too, so it is always that balance between reliability and affordability,” said Greene.

The order to initiate rolling blackouts was made by MISO, a super-regional entity in charge of maintaining power reliability.

Greene said companies’ failure to give customers a heads up when they would be subject to a rolling blackout needs to be addressed. He says there must be a better system in place.

“I had people send me the notices that they get from their utilities saying please curtail your usage, and they’ve been out for four days! The utilities know how much you have to pay when you go to pay your bill every month they should know when you are out,” said Greene.

Governor Edwards requested everyone limit energy consumption from 7PM to 10 PM Friday night and 7 AM to 9 AM Saturday morning to help reduce the need for rolling blackouts.

(Story written by Matt Doyle/Louisiana Radio Network)