Duke Energy ( NYSE: DUK ) apologized Tuesday for rolling blackouts that left 15% of its customers in North Carolina and South Carolina - roughly a half-million people - without power during Christmas weekend.
In a presentation to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Duke ( DUK ) said the rotating outages - the company's first-ever in the Carolinas - were conducted as "a preventive measure to avoid potentially larger and longer outages across the system," which was strained by "historic cold weather and extremely high customer demand for electricity" caused by Winter Storm Elliott.
"We regret not being able to provide customers as much advance notice as we would have liked, and acknowledge that the outages themselves lasted far longer than we first expected," Duke Energy Carolinas ( DUK ) CEO Julie Janson said.
The length of the outages, which in some cases lasted longer than original estimates, was caused by a failure of the automated tool used to disconnect and then restore power, requiring circuits to be restored manually, the company said.
Duke Energy ( DUK ) "offers a bulwark against wealth destruction," and is set to grow adjusted EPS by 5%-7% from the midpoint of its 2023 guidance, Leo Imasuen writes in an analysis posted recently on Seeking Alpha .
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Duke Energy says heavy electricity demand led to rolling Christmas blackouts