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On the evening of Friday, December 23, 2022, the Duke Energy Progress, LLC (“DEP”) and Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC (“DEC”, collectively “Duke Energy” or the “Companies”) service areas in North and South Carolina began to experience very cold weather caused by Winter Storm Elliott. As the winter storm progressed into the morning of Saturday, December 24, 2022, Duke Energy instituted rolling blackouts, or load shed actions, that left Duke Energy customers without power. Load shed is an electric industry term that refers to the controlled interruption of service to customers, which is implemented as a last resort to maintain electric grid balance. In South Carolina, approximately 94,893 customers were affected by the Companies’ load shed actions. On average, customers were without power for just under three (3) hours, with some affected for over ten (10) hours. This Report examines the causes of the customer outages, the communication from the Companies, the role of the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (“SEEM”), lessons learned, and any areas for improvement.

 

View the Inspection and Examination Report of Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC and Duke Energy Progress, LLC December 2022 Winter Storm Outages and Blackouts