SWEPCO service outages in Caddo and Bossier Parish due to grid protection event
SHREVEPORT, La. — SWEPCO is in the process of restoring power to approximately 30,000 customers in Caddo and Bossier parishes.
Power should be back on Saturday night, the company said in a statement released at 9 p.m.
SWEPCO released the following statement about the outages:
“According to Southwest Power Pool, generation and transmission constraints localized in areas served by SWEPCO in and around northwest Louisiana led to the need to curtail load, impacting around 30,000 customers. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused our customers and appreciate your patience.
”SWEPCO and SPP operators are coordinating to restore service as quickly as possible. Additional plants are being brought online to help address the capacity constraints. plants are being brought online to help address the capacity constraints. A phased approach to restore power to everyone is underway, with teams adhering to safety protocols. Customers affected by the grid protection outage should be fully restored Saturday night.
“We were required to implement emergency outages to prevent potentially longer-term outages and more widespread damage to the electric grid that could take days or longer to fix. The SWEPCO team works with SPP to manage the flow of electricity in our area. Just as SPP provides direction on capacity available to meet the load forecast, including bringing units off and on to the system, they also give direction on emergency actions. SPP required us to take emergency outages in specific areas on the power lines that provide our customers with service.”
You can visit the SWEPCO website for additional information.