Duke Energy apologizes to customers for outages during frigid Christmas weather

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Duke Energy briefed the NC Utilities Commission on the rolling power outages over Christmas weekend. The decision to use rolling outages to manage the power grid has never been done in their history.

The CEO profusely apologized and recognized how much of an inconvenience this was for their customers. Ultimately they said they were not as prepared as they should have been for the weather conditions.

Leaders at Duke Energy said they had been monitoring weather events in the week leading up, but the rate at which the temperatures dropped and the rise in demand for service was higher than their models predicted which created a problem for them.

They did try other outlets like purchasing power from other entities but that did not work.

Leaders say their models take in to account historical usage, similar weather and days and times their forecast, but available resources were 10% below what they actually needed.

Governor Roy Cooper has called for a full investigation into the rolling blackouts during that bitterly cold weekend when temperatures dropped into the single digits.

At one point, nearly 20,000 customers were without power in Wake County and about 50,000 in the Triangle as a whole.

RELATED: What are rolling blackouts and why do power companies do them? Duke Energy explains

Duke Energy said it learns from every event and they noted many customers had their power restored on the same day.