A number of businesses and homes were impacted by a wide-ranging Carroll Electric Cooperative Corp. power outage Friday, March 29, that was particularly difficult for businesses seeing a large number of people visiting for Easter weekend.
A CECC map at the time showed the outages were widespread taking in Carroll County, over to Rogers and other areas of Northwest Arkansas, and into Missouri. Local residents said the outage lasted several hours.
Cory Smith, CECC vice president of corporate relations, said there were “a handful of outages” on Friday, primarily related to high winds.
“Carroll Electric experienced one major outage that impacted the area you described,” Smith wrote in an email. “A failing jumper located on the transmission line owned by American Electric Power Company, Inc. (AEP) required maintenance and repairs. That transmission line is a supply feed for multiple distribution substations of Carroll Electric. In the context of an electric grid, a jumper typically refers to a piece of equipment used to connect or bridge two conductors or components together. It is essentially a short length of wire or cable that provides an electrical connection between two points. The outage lasted approximately five minutes and was outside of our control. We estimate that 15,000 consumers experienced the short outage.”
Smith said there are several things utilities can do to ensure they have adequate transmission capacity, and this largely includes a combination of planning, investment and operational strategies. He said this consists of consumer load forecasting, transmission system planning, and utility grid upgrades.
“Carroll engages in all these strategies (among others) to safeguard the reliable delivery of electricity to its members,” Smith said.