For Immediate Release on Thursday, February 18, 2021—2:45 PM

Moorhead Public Service (MPS) has been closely monitoring the ongoing Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) situation. MPS will continue to do so until at least  10:00 PM on Saturday, February 20, 2021. The EEA has four levels (1 through 4) of emergency, with Level 1 being the lowest. SPP has removed the EEA; however, SPP remains in a conservative operations state until 10:00 PM on February 20, 2021. Conservative operations mean that SPP still needs to conservatively operate the SPP electric grid due to the ongoing weather event. Based on information from SPP and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), there is a very low probability of rolling outages occurring in Moorhead over the next
48 hours. However, staff wanted to make you aware of MPS’ situation due to the extreme weather conditions in the SPP footprint and the possibility, even if it is very low, of more rolling outages.

MPS will provide as much advanced notice as possible before commencing rolling outages in Moorhead―if they become necessary. If MPS needs to initiate rolling outages, the first area affected will be in the Red Zone (see attached map) and then alternate to the Blue Zone (see attached map) every other 30 minutes until MPS is allowed to go back to normal operations by SPP/WAPA.

Here is a link to view the maps mentioned above:  MPS GIS Rolling Outage Areas

Again, MPS apologizes for any inconvenience or disruption of electricity due to the SPP EEA situation. Thank you for your support and understanding as we all work through this together.