By admin 
Extreme heat caused a series of brief power interruptions Saturday and Monday for Tri-County Electric Cooperative customers, including in Lower Richland, when a transmission line sagged enough to make contact with another line below it.
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The outages occurred as the Columbia area reached 100 F Monday, and feels-like temperatures exceeded that. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for the area Sunday.
A Santee Cooper spokesperson said Monday’s heat also caused a record summer peak power demand on the utility’s system.
Officials with Santee Cooper and the South Carolina Electric Cooperatives confirmed that a series of power “blinks,” where power gets briefly disconnected, occurred in the system because of extreme heat causing power lines to sag.
The system recorded five power blinks Monday, and one Saturday, in the Tri-County co-op’s Midlands service area. That coverage area includes six counties, but the utility specifically reported outages in the Lower Richland area Monday.
“An inspection Monday found that the line was sagging, something that can happen during periods of extreme heat as the metal in transmission lines expands,” said Mollie Gore, a Santee Cooper spokesperson.
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In this case, the sagging line came into contact with a Dominion Energy distribution line that crossed underneath it. When a transmission line comes in contact with something, like a branch or another power line, it can interrupt power service.
Dominion has since lowered its line in that area, Santee Cooper said, and the issue is expected to be resolved.
Extreme heat tied to growing outages nationwide
Extreme heat has been putting more stress on power grids across the country, research has found.
Climate Central, which runs the Climate Matters reporting program, found that the U.S. experienced about 60% more weather-related major power outages during the hottest months of the year in 2014-23 than it did from 2000-09. The analysis counted major outages from May through September, defined as those affecting at least 50,000 customers.
The brief power interruptions recorded Saturday and Monday were far smaller than major outages tracked nationally. But the U.S. Department of Energy reports that heat-related line sagging and equipment malfunctions can threaten electric-grid reliability as well. Columbia is known for extreme heat, and holds the state’s all-time temperature record of 113 F in 2012.
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