CLEVELAND — As the air reaches sub-zero temperatures across northeast Ohio, thousands of people are cranking up the heat inside their homes.

With higher energy demand, there could be a higher risk for outages.

What You Need To Know

  • Hundreds of schools and offices remain closed, with temperatures dropping to dangerously low levels across the state.

  • There is a bigger demand for energy as more people are staying inside and turning up the heat, which could impact the state’s power grid.

  • Energy experts are helping residents stay safe and be more energy efficient as the wintry weather continues.

“We know a lot of people are using the energy right now to heat their homes as the cold temperatures have moved in, and we've taken some steps to prepare for any outage that may occur,” said FirstEnergy spokesperson Hannah Catlett said. 

So far, Catlett said the company hasn’t seen any outages due to the cold, but they’re taking precautions by temporarily halting non-critical, planned outages in areas of extreme cold. In doing so, Catlett said they’re hoping to keep customers and their employees safe.

“In this type of cold, we don't want to create that interruption for our customers, so we've canceled those jobs,” she said. “The linemen who would have been out on those jobs are still working. They're just doing some in-house work, and they're prepared to respond to an unplanned outage if one occurs.”

Grant Goodrich is the executive director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University. He said the institute supports energy-related research and initiatives, connecting university faculty with energy companies and research labs in Ohio and across the country.

Goodrich said the state’s power grid mainly works with industrial utilities companies like FirstEnergy or municipal utilities to deliver electricity to consumers. In this sense, the Ohio power grid’s performance largely depends on each person’s provider, he said.

“So as the load increases across the system, they are the ones telling generators that they need to generate more electricity, but there's only so many resources that can be called on to generate electricity,” he said.

Greater pressure means the state’s power grid faces increased risk of failure, he said.

“When everyone at once is perhaps plugging in an additional space heater, that is where we're putting additional strain on our electric grid,” he said. 

Still, Catlett said they’re working with regional grid operators to meet customers’ needs.

“They make sure that the supply is there for the demand in these cold temperatures,” Catlett said. “So we're in constant communication with them as we work to deliver the power that people are expecting.”

She said there are also steps customers can take to minimize dangers and save some money on energy bills, which include, turning off unattended heating appliances, keeping electronic devices fully charged and closing the blinds at night to trap in heat.

“Close your fire pit damper or your fireplace damper if you're not using it,” Catlett said. “Things like that make a big difference overall when it comes to this really extreme cold and keeping your home at a comfortable temperature.”