With severe weather causing rolling blackouts in Texas, and power outages stretching from coast to coast, some LPEA members are rightfully concerned about the reliability of their power, now and into the future.

Each year, the majority of LPEA members experience one power outage or less. That means we keep the lights on in your home or business 99.998% of the time. To achieve this, we closely monitor power outage frequency and duration and address problem areas with system upgrades or additional maintenance.

But maintenance on LPEA’s transmission and distribution network is only half of the reliability equation. The other half is power supply because before we can deliver you electricity, it must be generated.

As LPEA explores new power supply options to deliver you affordable, low-carbon power into the future, there is one thing we will never sacrifice: reliability. You depend on electricity every hour of every day, and LPEA’s future power supply must support that.

Renewable resources will play a large role in LPEA’s future power supply mix, but in the near-term other dispatchable generation will also be needed. Dispatchable generation typically uses a fuel, like natural gas, that can be turned on and off as needed to meet your electricity needs. To maximize the use of renewables in LPEA’s future power supply – without sacrificing reliability – we are currently implementing a Distributed Energy Resource Management system. Through this system, devices like electric vehicle chargers, programable thermostats, and water heaters can be managed to align their energy consumption with times of plentiful renewable generation without inconveniencing you, our members.

In the future, LPEA will receive some of our power from local generation resources connected directly to our system, but LPEA will also receive power from the Bulk Electric System to ensure the diversification and redundancy needed for reliable power delivery. This is necessary to avoid situations like occurred in California last summer where demand for electricity exceeded the generation that was available at the time. In short, through careful planning and resource diversity, you will continue to receive the same reliability LPEA is known for, regardless of future power supply selection.