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LAS CRUCES - "No excuses."
That's what El Paso Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Stevens told Las Cruces City Council and city residents Monday about rolling blackouts and other electricity problems last week that were caused by bitterly cold temperatures and severe weather.
"We won't make any excuses," a contrite Stevens said during a presentation at Monday's council meeting. "But this weather event was relatively unprecedented, not unprecedented altogether. ... Unfortunately, because we lost as much energy as we did, we had to have rolling blackouts."
The blackouts were forced on all El Paso Electric customers in Texas and New Mexico from Wednesday through Friday, when a substantial amount of generating capabilities were literally frozen at El Paso Electric's two power plants, in northeast El Paso and near Sunland Park. Stevens said the plants were built to tolerate temperature drops to as low as 18 degrees.
But the duration of the much lower temperatures lasted longer than anyone imagined. Temperatures below freezing lasted for more than 91 consecutive hours last week, according to National Weather Service.
The blackouts were implemented to keep El Paso Electric's distribution system from overloading. City officials said had an overload occurred, the entire system would have failed and it could have taken 12 hours or more to restore electricity.
"We had to make sure we had balance," said Stevens, explaining how the blackouts evenly distributed
Almost four continuous days of below-freezing temperatures taught plenty of lessons to El Paso Electric officials - as well as the thousands of its New Mexico customers.
"We have already found things we have to improve on," Stevens said.
What's the cost?
But a concern many were eager to discuss was posed to Stevens by Councilor Dolores Connor soon after he started his presentation. Connor's husband works for El Paso Electric.
"Please do not pass the additional fuel cost on to the residents," said Connor, of EPE's purchase of electricity from outside sources during last week's problems. "That would be unfair to the residents."
Stevens said he couldn't make any guarantees, but added it was unlikely the additional costs will fall on customers.
"I don't anticipate any dramatic cost in electricity to the consumer," Stevens said.
He added any fuel cost adjustments would have to be approved by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. A fuel cost adjustment would have to come with any request to raise rates, and Stevens said that's not going to happen.
"We're not going to file for a rate increase," he said.
Can you hear me now?
Connor also had other issues with El Paso Electric during last week's blackouts.
"I'm not pleased how El Paso Electric interacted with the public," Connor said.
She said the company's Internet site provided little, if any, information about the status of rolling blackouts, and numerous customers had problems trying to talk to an El Paso Electric representative on the phone to get more details.
"Because of that, our 911 system was really bogged down," Connor said. "You (El Paso Electric) need a better system to notify individual residents. I feel El Paso Electric dropped the ball in communicating with our residents."
Stevens acknowledged that El Paso Electric could have done a better job of communicating with customers. That was one of the lessons learned.
"I agree in continuing communications," Councilor Gill Sorg said. "... Las Cruces is often left out when it comes to providing ample communications about what's happening."
Stevens added that an independent investigation of the problems will be conducted and details of those findings will be sent to city officials when they become available.
Las Cruces resident Jim Harbison said he was concerned because his neighborhood experienced five rolling blackouts in 30 hours, but some council members said they weren't subject to any.
Las Crucen Chris Perez said while repairs and improvements to El Paso Electric's two power plants are needed, he wanted to know how those will be paid for.
"There is (going to be) a significant cost," Stevens said. "But we would have to have communications first with the community and come forward with our recommendations."
Steve Ramirez can be reached at (575) 541-5452
Electric issues
• David Stevens, CEO of El Paso Electric Co., spoke Monday to the Las Cruces City Council about last week's electricity issues caused by a brutal winter storm.
• Stevens answered questions from the council as well as from residents.
• Although Stevens didn't offer any guarantees, he said it was unlikely that costs to purchase outside power during last week's cold weather would be passed on to the utility's customers.
• Stevens said some changes will be made, including better notifications to customers regarding any future problems that might develop.
