Southwest Power Pool Issues Conservative Operations Advisory

The SPP (Southwest Power Pool, the Regional Transmission Operator for our wholesale power supplier the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority, has issued a Conservative Operations Advisory for its entire 14-state balancing authority area. While Conservative Operations Advisories do not require the public to conserve energy, Ponca City Energy is asking that our customers take some steps to help conserve energy from July 18 through July 20 during the hours of 2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Customers can take the following steps to conserve energy:

• Set thermostats higher than usual if health permits
• Postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers, and clothes dryers until the demand for electricity decreases
• Turn off electric lights and appliances that you do not need or are not using, and
• Keep doors, windows and blinds shut to keep houses cool

Again, while SPP has not issued any Energy Emergency Alerts, we would like our customers to do everything they can to conserve energy, so we don’t reach the Energy Emergency Alert Levels. Below is a chart provided by SPP illustrating the different alert levels.

*SPP issues Conservative Operation Advisories to signal to utilities that own and operate transmission and generation facilities that there is a need to operate the bulk power system more conservatively to mitigate risks associated with weather, environmental, operational, terrorist, cyber or other events. SPP has declared this advisory because of high demand for electricity across its region and the availability of generation resources.