WCNC is reporting that Duke Energy apologized to customers yesterday and explained what caused rolling blackouts that left hundreds of thousands of people without power over Christmas weekend during frigid weather in the Carolinas. Duke Energy officials presented the findings of their investigation to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, saying a “unique chain of events” led to the blackouts during the extremely cold weather that brought frigid temperatures to the state on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Duke said the rotating outages were the first in company history, and the preventative measure was necessary to avoid potentially larger outages across the grid. Approximately 15% of Duke Energy customers, roughly 500,000, were impacted.
