Avista: No outages Thursday, Friday

Following three days with more than 20,000 protective outages in some of its service areas, Avista said there were no protective outages initiated on Thursday or Friday.

Avista thanked customers that were impacted by the focused, protective outages that were implemented this week to alleviate the strain on the electric system due to an unprecedented heat wave. The company does not plan to complete additional protective outages into the weekend.

“We are incredibly grateful to all of our customers who experienced outages this week for their patience, understanding and resilience,” said Dennis Vermillion, Avista president and CEO. “Dealing with power outages during these hot days was challenging, and we recognize our part in adding to an already stressful situation. We strive to put our customers first, and we realize it didn’t feel that way for many of them this week. We commit to learning from this and improving for the future.

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest set a new systemwide peak electric load for Avista of about 2,300 megawatts. The heat also put significant strain on the electric grid, Avista said.

"The combination of the temperatures and the increased electric usage, due in large part to air conditioning use, caused parts of the electric system focused in Spokane and Lewiston, Idaho to overload or not perform as expected," a press release said.

The heat and increased usage impacted seven out of 128 substations on Avista’s system. Over the course of three days, Avista was able to minimize the protective outages and alleviate some of the strain on the system as customers conserved electricity and the company shifted electric load and modified parts of the grid.

The unique number of customers who experienced protective outages was 15,307 on Monday, 6,793 on Tuesday and 602 on Wednesday. There were no protective outages initiated on Thursday or Friday.