ASHEBORO N.C. – With almost six-thousand customers without power across Randolph County, Duke Energy is warning that rolling blackouts may be necessary to protect the energy grid.
Duke Energy, in a statement on its outage tracker says that due to extremely cold temperatures driving unusually high energy demand, the power company has deployed temporary power outages across the system.
These emergency outages, also known as “rolling blackouts” are necessary “to protect the energy grid against longer, more widespread outages by keeping demand under control to prevent systems from tripping offline.
As of Saturday afternoon, around six thousand customers are without power in Randolph County, with most of those outages being in or near Asheboro and extending east across Hwy 64 into Ramseur and Franklinville.
The utility company says many outages are being caused by other unrelated factors, such as downed tree limbs.
We reached out to Duke Energy to see how long rolling blackouts are likely to be necessary, as of the time of publication no reply has been received. (We will update this article if and when more information is made available.)
A spokesperson said they will update the online outage map as crews provide more information. “We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we respond to this emergency situation.”