Utilities across the Pacific Northwest are bracing for exceptional stress on the grid as record-breaking temperatures continue to fester across the region, and at least one utility—Avista Corp.—this week began rolling outages as a measure to alleviate strain on the electric system.
Despite pleas to customers to reduce their power consumption, Avista, which supplies power to 340,000 customers in eastern Washington and northern Idaho, initiated “proactive and targeted protective outages” on Monday and Tuesday in the Spokane area as part of a “protective measure intended to minimize the customer impact, alleviate strain on the electric system and prevent extensive damage to the system that could result in prolonged outages.”
