ERCOT continues to mandate outages from utilities across the state. A third of our system continues to be without power and ERCOT forced outages are responsible for about 95% of the members without power.

Crews continue work to get the last few weather related outages back on.

For forced outages, you can expect to be without power for up to 8 hours, then power will come back on for 30 minutes-2 hours and then will go off again. Earlier today we were hopeful that the grid would have enough capacity to allow us to shorten the forced outages for members, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case.

We will continue to monitor the ERCOT grid conditions. They are constantly changing and will continue to do so overnight as temperatures drop. As generation throughout the state comes back online and ERCOT releases more load to utilities, things will get better. We can’t say at this time when that will happen. We still expect these forced outages to last at least through Wednesday afternoon, based on the information we currently have.

Outages can be reported by calling 1-866-632-3532 or using the SmartHub app or at MedinaEC.org. If you report an outage and learn you are part of a forced outage, please wait until you have been without power for 8 hours to re-report. We know that this is a frustrating situation but waiting to call back will free up phone lines for other members. The forced outages are completely outside of our control.

For outages please :

1)    To get official information, continue to check our website. To see the latest outage numbers and track progress, visit our outage map.

2)    Report your outages on SmartHub (on our website or through the app) if you can. This is your best option.

3)    To speak to a customer service agent, call 1-866-632-3532 or use the chat function on our website, which is available from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Expect delays if you use the phone system; it is overwhelmed with calls since we have more than 10,000 members off at any given time. 

During Forced Outages

We need your help. If you are without power, please turn off any appliances and heating systems that were on when your outage began. When we flip the switch to bring you back online, we need the load to be as low as possible. If heaters are in the on position when the power comes back up, we run the risk of overload which can lead to additional outage times.

Why Are Some People Not Losing Power

Certain feeders cannot be turned off because they serve critical loads like hospitals, natural gas plants, etc. Others are left on because they’re on an emergency list that will automatically drop if the grid gets into even more critical trouble than we are seeing right now. If that happens, those loads will immediately drop to protect grid integrity.