Systemwide Outage Leaves Thousands Without Power in Anchorage and Mat-Su
On Monday morning, residents of Anchorage and the Mat-Su area experienced significant power disruptions due to a load-shedding event. This outage impacted approximately 19,000 customers across the region, prompting immediate action from local utility companies.
Details of the Power Outage
- Location: Anchorage and Mat-Su area
- Time of Outage: Morning of the incident
- Estimated Affected Customers: Around 19,000
Utility Company Responses
Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) confirmed the outage via a social media update at 9:47 a.m. Shortly afterward, Chugach Electric also reported the situation, referring to it as a load-shedding event. This technical term describes incidents where a major power source becomes unavailable, leading to forced outages to balance supply and demand.
By 10:15 a.m., Chugach Electric issued an update indicating that power had been restored. MEA followed suit with a similar announcement around 10:45 a.m.
Causes of the Outage
Although the exact cause of the load-shedding event was not immediately identified, Chugach Electric indicated that both their systems and MEA’s experienced generation losses. Chugach stated, “Early indications are that both Chugach and MEA lost generation causing the cascading outages across our service territories.”
In response, utility companies are working to bring additional power generation resources online to stabilize the grid. Chugach Electric thanked its customers for their understanding and patience during this unexpected outage.
