On a bitter cold night, We Energies begged customers to turn down their thermostats. How close did the natural gas supply system come to failure?
Karl EbertWe Energies' stunning Dec. 23 request for customers to turn down their thermostats to conserve natural gas upended customers' confidence in a steadily reliable supply of gas and set off a wave of online recrimination against the utility.
The unprecedented request arrived shortly after 6 p.m. as families hunkered down for the start of the Christmas weekend -- and cranked up the heat as nighttime temperatures headed below zero.
We Energies asked its customers to turn down thermostats to 60 or 62 degrees at the tail end of a chaotic day in which the utility, which serves 1.1 million customers in southeast Wisconsin, scrambled to reduce consumption by its biggest customers, tap its reserves and find natural gas supplies from other sources. The emergency was triggered when Guardian Pipeline LLC, the company that operates the largest pipeline that feeds We Energies, dramatically cut the utility's supply because of a problem at an Illinois compression station.
"We were moving a lot of gas," said Dan Kreuger, executive vice president for infrastructure and generation planning at We Energies' parent company, WEC Energy Group.
"To lose 30% of the gas on the biggest pipeline serving our customers is a pretty major blow."
'Never seen an interstate pipeline failure like this'
We Energies went through steps that day that are outlined with gas management and emergency plans that are reviewed annually by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. It was able to stabilize the system without running through all of the options in the plan, averting a worst-case scenario that could have included gas service shutdowns on a night when temperatures dipped to their lowest level in nearly three years, warming shelters opened for vulnerable residents, and the city issued a cold weather safety advisory.
"We've never seen an interstate pipeline failure like this, but we have thought about these things a lot," Krueger said.
Had pressure dropped to the point that We Energies needed to begin cutting off service areas to maintain the integrity of the larger system, customers could have been without gas service for days or even weeks.
Once gas service is lost, utility workers need to go door to door to restore gas service and make sure pilot lights are relit and working properly, PSC Chair Rebecca Cameron Valcq said. The process is labor-intensive and time-consuming, she said.
"Fortunately, they didn't get even close to that part," Valcq said
Utility followed its emergency 'playbook'
Krueger said the initial steps in its "playbook" for emergencies, were to reduce consumption by its biggest energy users and supplement the gas supply by tapping reserves at its Oak Creek liquefied natural gas facility.
It turned to residential customers late in the day after the other efforts to find new supplies of gas and reduce consumption helped, but weren't enough to ensure an adequate overnight supply of gas, Krueger said.
"We had to be sure," Krueger said. "We have to be sure that people can heat their homes and the system is stable, so, when we weren't sure (other efforts were) going to do that, we made the appeal."
The company tried to reach customers through online and broadcast media, on social media and via email. Customer reactions ranged from compliance to criticism, but enough customers turned down their heat to get We Energies through the night.
By morning, the system was stable and new sources of gas were flowing. Krueger said the utility is still trying to determine the effectiveness of its appeal to residents.
"We are analyzing that data," Krueger said. "It did seem to have an effect and the system did stabilize to the point where the following morning we were able to cancel the public appeal."
Regulators worked to avoid a Texas-style power meltdown
Throughout the day We Energies was in contact with regulators at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, keeping them updated as the crisis evolved. The PSC, in turn, was in contact with Gov. Tony Evers' office, Valcq said.
Valcq said We Energies' response to the interruption followed a script that is part of a gas supply plan that is submitted annually to the PSC for approval. The plans set minimum reserves to cover unforeseen events, unanticipated increases in demand, system capacity and other developments that might affect the supply. It also outlines hedging strategies for obtaining additional gas when needed.
The entire episode, Valcq said, underscores the importance of planning, regulatory oversight and ensuring the resiliency of power supplies.
Had the pieces not been in place, pressure in the system could have fallen to a point where gas service could have been turned off for large blocks of customers, creating a crisis similar to the electric power meltdown in Texas following a bitter winter storm in 2021, and rolling blackouts in the southeast in December.
"In my mind, it really underscores the fact that no type of generation is immune from equipment issues and why, as we continue to look at the transition in the energy industry, it is so important that we continue to take in all of the above approaches," Valcq said.
"And I think it's a timely reminder — it's pretty humbling when you stop and think of the ramifications if the gas would have started to be cut off."
24 hours of uncertainty after 'unplanned maintenance' at gas facility
The problem at Guardian Pipeline's compressor station in Sycamore, Illinois, west of Chicago, was identified on Dec. 22, according to a notification the subsidiary of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based ONEOK Inc., posted on its website. The notice stated that the station had mechanical issues that required "unplanned maintenance" that would have an unspecified impact on the flow of gas in the pipeline, which runs from Joliet, Illinois to Green Bay.
Early the next day, the company notified We Energies that it would not be able to complete the repair and would need to decrease the northbound flow of gas by 35%, resulting in a 30% reduction in its flow to We Energies. The company did not provide an estimate of how long the interruption would last.
We Energies immediately set in action a plan focused on two areas: decreasing consumption and replacing the lost supply.
On the consumption front, We Energies first turned to large industrial and other big customers that had agreed to allow the utility to interrupt service at times of unusually high demand or tight supplies. When that only partially addressed the problem, the utility also began to contact its other large customers, asking them to do what they could to reduce gas use.
"We had entire teams of people calling, emailing, texting, working to get a hold of these customers and see what kind of measures they'd be willing to take," Krueger said. "It was quite a bit of effort — a lot of people deployed working to get it done. It turned out it was a little hard, the Friday before Christmas Eve, to get hold of people."
A scramble to find more natural gas
On the supply side, the company fired up a plant in Oak Creek that converts liquefied natural gas that is stored on site to its gaseous form, adding a new gas source to the system.
It also contacted other companies that use We Energies' distribution system to deliver gas to large companies, telling them that they needed to pump as much gas into the system as they could to meet those customers' needs and maintain the system's pressure.
Meanwhile, We Energies employees were working with the operator of the next biggest pipeline, ANR Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of the Canadian pipeline company TC Energy to increase its flow. Initially, the company said it could meet We Energies' needs. Less than an hour later, that was no longer the case. We Energies had been bumped back in the line for additional supplies by other ANR customers who had firm contracts for the additional gas they needed to get through the cold snap.
Krueger compared it to flying standby on an airline. When a higher priority passenger, like a pilot, needs a seat, standby passengers fall back in line.
Shortly after that, We Energies decided it needed to turn to residential customers to ensure it could get through the night.
"It was at about 6 o'clock that they said we're going to issue a public appeal because we've gone through every step that we need to go through and, while we're hearing from Guardian that they will be able to repair the compressor station, we want, out of an abundance of caution, to issue this public appeal," Valcq said.
Unclear how many customers dialed down thermostats
Krueger said the company continues to review the incident and has not yet determined how widely the request for customers was heeded. But by 11 p.m., gas use was dropping, We Energies was booking other gas supplies, and the system had stabilized to the point that We Energies could cancel its request to conserve gas.
Guardian's problem in Illinois persisted for four days. A Guardian spokesman did not respond to messages seeking additional information about the incident.
Although its 262-mile pipeline is the largest single source of gas, We Energies and its sister company, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. draw gas from all seven interstate pipelines that supply the state.
That made a difference in the following days — ANR started pumping additional gas on Dec. 24, and other pipelines also increased their flow, Krueger said.
"I will say one thing about the WEC utilities: they're the only utilities in the state that have access to all seven interstate pipelines," Valcq said.
What if the plan hadn't been enough?
Calling on residential customers to cut use wasn't the last tool We Energies had at its disposal.
The likely next step, Krueger said, would have involved taking a similar approach to reducing gas use in WPS's service territory in northeast Wisconsin. If necessary, the company would have asked other major utilities in the state to do the same, all with the goal of avoiding gas shutoffs if pressure in the system plummeted.
Had that happened, the Wisconsin Energy Management Office, other state agencies and local governments would have begun setting up warming shelters to ensure the most vulnerable residents in the affected areas were safe, Valcq said.
"If it had gotten to that point, that would be a very, very close and quick coordination between the PSC, the governor's office and the utility," she said.
Editor's note Jan. 24, 2024: This story was republished to make it free for all readers.
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