The winter weather was a main topic of discussion at yesterday morning’s Laurens Commission of Public Works meeting.
Recent cold weather was noted in Keith Wood’s presentation on the commission’s firm and interruptible industrial natural gas service. He pointed out that the Polar Vortex brought the coldest days in twenty years to the eastern United States, and that five of the fourteen coldest days in the last eighteen years occurred last month. That extreme weather brought a new high for gas demand and natural gas storage withdrawal during the week ending January tenth. He said that natural gas storage volumes are now at the largest deficit since record keeping began in 1994. Wood explained that industrial customers on interruptible service contracts have alternate fuels they can switch to, but some ran out of propane or oil and had to switch back to natural gas.
The coal powered plants had forced outages due to frozen coal piles and cracked pipes, which forced gas fired power plants to burn gas at any price to supply power to the grid.
Wood said that in South Carolina, South Carolina E&G had rolling blackouts due to generation problems and Duke industrial customers on an interruptible electric rate were interrupted.
As for the current winter storm, the Commissioners were told the CPW’s Storm Team was preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.
The Laurens CPW took two votes following executive session discussions at yesterday’s February meeting.
They voted to approve organizational changes proposed for their consideration. More details on that to come.
The Commissioners also voted to change the meeting time. Instead of meeting at 9:00 am on the 2nd Monday of each month, the Commissioners have moved the time to 5:30 pm, also on the 2nd Monday. However, there will be an exception for the March meeting, which was shifted to the third Monday, the 17th, due to a scheduling conflict that month.