An incoming blast of frigid air will test efforts by Kentucky’s largest utility to fortify its power plants and avoid a repeat of rolling blackouts the utility was forced to impose during a winter storm in 2022. A surge of frigid air connected to the polar vortex  is expected to bring significant amounts of ice and snow from Owensboro to Pikeville beginning Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service office in Louisville. Temperatures are then expected to drop as low as single digits next week. Those cold temperatures will have a “significant impact” on those who lose power during the winter precipitation, according to the National Weather Service office in Louisville. The polar vortex is a spinning, arctic air mass that can become displaced and reach farther south across North America. Some research has indicated human-driven climate change could be causing more frequent disruptions of the polar vortex. Pipeline operators, power generators and utilities were alerted this week to “take all appropriate actions” to “maintain an uninterrupted supply of electricity” in the face of the incoming weather. The call came Dec. 31 from the North American Reliability Corporation, or NERC, a nonprofit that oversees reliability of the nation’s electricity system. In an assessment of electricity reliability ahead of this winter, NERC said prolonged cold snaps that drive up electricity demand, colliding with freezing temperatures that threaten natural gas supply, put the electricity supply at risk.  Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities — the state’s largest utility serving about 1.3 million customers — is prepared to make sure failures of its fossil fuel-fired power plants in 2022 don’t happen again, a spokesman for the utility said.  Those failures were caused by another surge of arctic air, unofficially named Winter Storm Elliott,  that was related to the polar vortex. The extreme cold caused a gas pipeline failure and froze equipment that, coupled with surging electricity demand from people warming their homes, drove the utility to issue rolling blackouts to approximately 54,000 customers for the first time ever.  Since then, some consumer and renewable energy advocates have argued the utility could do more to shore up its vulnerabilities to blackouts spurred by extreme winter weather, assertions rebuffed by LG&E and KU.  LG&E and KU spokesperson Chris Whelan in a statement said while the rolling blackouts issued during Winter Storm Elliott impacted fewer than 5% of the utility’s customers, the utility has “no intention of having it happen again.”  “We have no intention of having it happen again, and have taken all reasonable steps with our own generating facilities, as well as our natural gas pipeline service providers, to protect against having such an event recur,” Whelan said.  Winter Storm Elliott fallout and follow up  LG&E and KU was not alone in suffering a power supply crunch during Winter Storm Elliott. The strain on the electricity grid across the Eastern U.S. caused other utilities’ coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants to fail, spurring the Tennessee Valley Authority to also reduce its electricity load by issuing rolling blackouts to customers. The failures of LG&E and KU’s own fossil fuel-fired power plants and the ensuing rolling blackouts were scrutinized by the state utility regulator, the  Kentucky Public Service Commission, last year as part of an investigation into the root causes of the failures and what the utility did, or could have done, after the storm to shore up its electricity system in the future.  LG&E and KU leaders had previously told the commission the primary driver behind the utility’s rolling blackouts during Winter Storm Elliott was the loss of pressure from a Texas Gas Transmission pipeline supplying fuel to two of their natural-gas fired power plants.  But Lonnie Bellar, LG&E and KU’s chief operating officer, also told the commission that a number of equipment failures at their coal-fired power plants, ranging from a frozen transmitter to a failing gearbox, also contributed to the power supply woes during the storm. If the utility’s coal-fired power plants had been operating at full capacity during the storm, Bellar told the commission, the utility could have avoided the rolling blackouts. But he also said he wouldn’t “point the finger solely” at coal-fired power as the cause of the rolling blackouts.  The GOP-dominated Kentucky legislature pointed to the rolling blackouts issued by LG&E, KU and the TVA as a reason to pass a bill in 2023 making it harder to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants, touting coal-fired power as a reliable energy source.  When asked by the Lantern about what LG&E and KU had done to prevent future failures at its coal-fired power plants, Whelan said the utility inspects equipment, reviews extreme weather plans and makes “necessary adjustments to help improve reliability” ahead of peak electricity demand during the winter.  Whelan also said the utility installed software updates to allow gas-fired turbines at its Trimble County Generating Station to operate at lower gas pressures, and the utility also “installed weather protection around regulators” supplying gas-fired turbines at its E.W. Brown Generating Station in Mercer County. Whelan said the Texas Gas Transmission Company has also “upgraded its equipment and operating procedures” since Winter Storm Elliott. How soon and how often should consumers be asked to curb demand? The PSC also heard arguments from renewable energy and consumer advocacy groups who said LG&E and KU could have done more during the storm and afterwards to shore up its electricity supply during extreme winter temperatures.  Attorneys for groups — which include Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the Mountain Association, the Kentucky Solar Energy Society and the Metropolitan Housing Coalition in Louisville —  in an August 2024 brief argued LG&E and KU could have made more timely appeals to the public to reduce electricity demand as the storm approached.  Coal-fired power failures during winter storm come to light months later The attorneys argued the utility knew days in advance there were going to be higher electricity loads the morning of Dec. 23, 2022, but “made no public service announcements or other public messaging requesting customers to voluntarily reduce energy consumption.”  “The Companies claim they were unable to issue public appeals before load shedding began because by the time they realized load shedding was unavoidable, it was too late for public appeals to be issued. That is nonsense,” the attorneys for the groups wrote.  The groups questioned how LG&E and KU procedures created in 2024 for issuing energy conservation messages would be implemented. The utility sends messages to customers depending on the “alert level” of its electricity load.  Among other critiques, the attorneys for the groups also argued that because the utility isn’t  part of a regional grid operator such as PJM or MISO, LG&E and KU are more vulnerable during extreme weather events such as Winter Storm Elliott. Such regional grid operators manage electricity across multiple states and utilities, and the attorneys said the larger geographic footprint and diversity of energy sources of those organizations could have increased energy reliability during the storm.  Utilities in PJM, including Kentucky Power, and utilities in MISO, such as the Big Rivers Electric Corp., faced a severe power crunch themselves during Winter Storm Elliott but did not have to issue rolling blackouts.  LG&E and KU attorneys refuted the groups’ critiques, describing as “pure speculation” the assertion that public appeals to reduce energy demand would have helped during the storm. In a September 2024 brief the utility says it entered Dec. 23, 2022 with “historically ample resources to meet projected demand.”  “The Companies — with over a century of experience providing reliable utility service to Kentuckians, including during extreme cold weather events — had no reason to anticipate the unprecedented and anomalous gas pressure reduction. Moreover, if the Companies ask customers to reduce usage every time severe weather is forecast, there is a risk that customers will not heed those requests when needed,” the utility attorneys wrote.  Whelan told the Lantern the utility has “long-standing plans and practices of alerting the public when energy conservation is necessary.”  The utility attorneys also dismissed concerns over LG&E and KU not being a part of a regional grid operator, saying the utility was able to buy and sell power from neighboring grid operators and that PJM was close to shedding load during Winter Storm Elliott.  The investigation regarding LG&E and KU decisions during Winter Storm Elliott is still pending before the Public Service Commission.  YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. The post Kentucky’s largest utility says it’s ready for extreme cold. Others argue it could do more. appeared first on The Lexington Times.