By Mike Scott
As temperatures soar into the upper nineties, City of Kahoka officials are warning of the possibility of rolling blackouts across the midwest. And they could impact customers in Kahoka.
At their Monday, June 13 city council meeting, Kahoka Electrical Designer Chuck Kerner told council members that the city’s transmission provider, Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) had announced the possibility of rolling blackouts. According to their website, www.misoenergy.org, MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is an independent, not-for-profit, member-based organization responsible for operating the power grid across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.
“We were told there is a possibility of rolling blackouts,” said Kerner. “We’re in the same area as Chicago and Minneapolis,” Kerner said. He added there was a one-in-six chance of a rolling blackout, lasting up to an hour at a time.
Kahoka City Program Director didn’t know if he could get the city’s electric plant online in that short of time without advance notice.
Lewis County REC customers will not be impacted by any MISO-related outages.
“We are not connected to MISO in any way,” said Travis Mathes, Manager of Member Services. “We own all our own generation and transmission.”
Ameren MO customers also should not be impacted. According to Regional Account Executive Annette Sweet, “the Ameren MO system has enough generation for our own customers.”
