
Just like the Old Farmer’s Almanac forecasted, the East Coast is bracing for a snowy winter storm in late January, maybe especially in eastern North Carolina, bringing excitement to kids and warnings from emergency officials and utility companies.
The brunt of the winter weather is expected to impact North Carolina starting Tuesday evening and into Wednesday. Out ahead of the storm, though, Duke Energy — the state’s primary electric utility — is asking customers to take it easy on their thermostats as temperatures drop to well below average.
Reduce your thermostat to the lowest comfortable setting. The closer you match your thermostat to outdoor temperatures, the more you can save. For more tips, visit https://t.co/vbtDwYiwqM pic.twitter.com/l8yio7DBxa
— Duke Energy (@DukeEnergy) January 19, 2025
“Reduce your thermostat to the lowest comfortable setting,” reads the X post. “The closer you match your thermostat to outdoor temperatures, the more you can save.”
The average high temperatures for Wednesday are expected to be below freezing across the state.
In a press release Monday, the Charlotte-based company, which provides power to millions in North Carolina, warned of the extremely cold temperatures to come and shared tips to “save energy and money” by moderating their energy use, i.e, heat for your home.
“Duke Energy is continuing to monitor forecasts and preparing for sustained freezing temperatures this week across the Carolinas,” states the release. “Temperatures could dip to the single digits in some areas.”
The statement goes on to share how utility customers can “take control of their energy use” by:
- Reduce your thermostat to the lowest comfortable setting. The closer you match your thermostat to outdoor temperatures, the more you can save.
- Change your air filter and schedule regular maintenance for your heating systems. Maintaining your heating systems can help increase efficiency.
- Leave drapes or blinds open on the sunny side of the home to allow the sun’s rays to warm the house, but close them at night to help insulate your home.
- Operate ceiling fans in a clockwise direction in the winter to push warm air back down into the room.
- Seal cracks in windows, doors and vents with caulking and weatherstripping to save 10% to 20% in heating costs.
- Replace standard bulbs with LEDs. LEDs are more efficient than regular bulbs, while giving off the same amount of light.
- Set your water heater to 120 degrees or less. Water heating is typically the second-biggest user of energy in your home.
While these energy-saving measures will surely shave some costs off your monthly electric bill, as the utility suggests, they may also be critical to preventing outages related to a confluence of extremely low temperatures and high demand.
Christmas 2022
A similar combination of plummeting temperatures and spiking demand forced the utility to implement rolling blackouts during Christmas of 2022. A cold snap overnight on Christmas Eve overloaded systems that had become more dependent than ever before on solar-generated energy, right when that energy source wasn’t available.
“Due to extreme cold weather causing increased demand and a shortage of available power in the Southeast region, the company was forced to interrupt service to about 500,000 customers to maintain the energy grid and prevent further disruptions,” Duke Energy reported on Christmas Day 2022.
As reported by Carolina Journal at the time, energy policy experts said that Duke’s “conservation measures” highlighted the fragility of the state’s power grid. Reports indicated that increased focus on renewable energy has diverted resources and focus away from shoring up the existing grid to ensure safety, security, and reliability.
The prioritization of these renewable energy sources can be found in the boiler plate statement included at the bottom of every Duke press release: “Duke Energy is executing an ambitious clean energy transition” as they work “toward net-zero carbon emissions from electricity generation [.]”
A study from the North American Electric Reliability Cooperation found that, if the power grid becomes dependent on solar and wind, a simple chain of cloudy days could turn the power off for thousands of homes. An extreme cold snap or increased demand like the one over the 2022 Christmas holiday, or the winter storm this week, could wreak havoc.
“Wind and solar are making the grid more unreliable as they gain share,” the NERC report read in July 2022.
The Institute for Energy Research also warned of growing disruptions back in the summer of 2022, as usage spiked during remote work and shutdowns.
“The duration of operator-initiated load shedding events spiked, and unserved energy demand reached its highest levels ever,” their report read. “No longer is peak demand the only clear risk to reliability — risks can emerge when weather-dependent generation is impacted by abnormal atmospheric conditions or when extreme conditions disrupt fuel supplies.”
de ja vu?
Since 2022, total solar generation has grown further in North Carolina and across the nation. In Oct. 2024, Environment North Carolina, Research and Policy Center, boasted that the Tar Heel State produces “15 times as much energy from the sun and wind as it did a decade ago.“
Just weeks later, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NREC) warned that North Carolina was at an elevated risk of blackouts during winter weather events, in part due to the impacts on the grid from Hurricane Helene.
Now, as a polar vortex moves into the Carolinas with extreme cold and frozen precipitation expected for the next several days, an elevated risk to reliability is once again in the forecast.
For the latest updates on power service during the winter weather, check here.
The post Duke Energy pleads with customers to moderate thermostats as winter storm could strain power grid first appeared on Carolina Journal.
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