Nov. 30—Grand River Dam Authority officials are offering simple tips to help conserve energy this winter.
Jerry C. Cook, manager of customer support services for GRDA, told board members of the Tahlequah Public Works Authority that they are already prepared for a repeat of the February 2021 winter snowstorm.
"We think this time we can respond a little more quickly and a little more effectively, but you can't control the cost," Cook said during a Nov. 19 TPWA board meeting. "We're very supportive of the environment, but we also just unloaded about 900,000 tons of coal because we think we may have some of this unpredictable weather [and] we would be required to back up gas with coal."
Cook also stressed the importance of conservation and said it's critical right before the cold season.
"Last year, when we all experienced the impacts of Winter Storm Uri, we encouraged, and our customers responded, to conserve every bit of demand they could to get us through the unprecedented power required to maintain the security and resilience of our GRDA and [Southwest Power Pool] grids," said Cook.
GRDA's cost for the storm was $102,338,100, and Tahlequah's portion was calculated at $2,836,307. TPWA agreed to roughly pay $62,000 every month for 120 months.
Tahlequah and Cherokee County were able to avoid controlled outages like the one Texas endured during the snowstorm.
The SPP remained at an Emergency Alert Level 2, and officials said if grids had gone to an Alert 3, there was a possibility of controlled outages.
"The people of Tahlequah, and TPWA under Mike Doublehead's leadership, along with Stilwell and really, all of our cities, responded in a very impactful way to help us avoid a catastrophe such as we all remember that occurred in Texas and other parts of the U.S.," said Cook.
Cook and Justin Alberty, GRDA corporate spokesman, believe now is the time to start conserving energy, just in case.
"While the extreme weather conditions that came with Winter Storm Uri were historic and very unusual for our part of the country, certainly conservation of energy is always a good idea," said Alberty. "The more we can all work together to conserve, the less generation is needed during those difficult times, and like Jerry mentioned, it better positions GRDA to maintain the lowest possible cost for our public power customer communities, like Tahlequah."
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, homeowners can save 10 percent on their energy bills just by turning their thermostats down 10 to 15 degrees for eight hours a day.