RALEY, N.C. — Duke Energy will appear before the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday to answer questions about the Carolina-wide Christmas Eve power outages.
In December, Duke Energy “deliberately” turned it off before the cold snap that hit the week of Christmas. The power outage came as a surprise to many customers.
In a statement, Duke Energy said less power was available over the Christmas weekend than originally estimated, leading to the decision to introduce rolling blackouts.
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Spokesman Jeff Brooks said last December that the company initially expected it had enough resources to hold out over the weekend. He said he believed he could meet customer demand even if some generations were unavailable due to “planned or conservative outages unrelated to the storm.”
Then, Brooks said, the generators were powered down overnight because of the weather, bringing thousands of megawatts online to serve customers.
Gov. Roy Cooper said in a tweet in December that he was concerned about people who lost power and did not receive notice of the rolling outage.
Cooper tweeted: “I asked Duke for a full report on what went wrong and to make changes.
The Commissioner will decide at today’s meeting whether further action will be taken or an investigation will be required.
>> At 5pm, Channel 9’s Madison Carter will provide an update on the meeting in Raleigh.
(See below: FBI investigating shots fired near Duke Energy plant in South Carolina)
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