“I would much rather be sitting here having conversations with you and anyone else about the spending and the impact than having conversations about how we couldn’t keep the flow going and why someone one lost his life. I’ll take this conversation all day.
To lessen the chances of a repeat of last winter, PSO said it was doing its part.
The company has increased its coverage — although that also comes with additional costs, Simmons said. PSO, which serves about 400,000 customers in the Tulsa area, is also diversifying its fuel generation mix by introducing more renewable energy.
One example is the company’s North Central Energy Facilities, its three wind farms in western Oklahoma.
These trusses – two are working and the third will go live this year – are designed with a cold weather package that will increase performance in extreme weather. If the facilities had been running in February and operating as planned, PSO said, the weatherization equipment would have saved the facilities about $200 million in fuel costs.
Half of PSO’s power is purchased from the Southwest Power Pool. Wind power and natural gas represent approximately 22% each.
“We obviously didn’t make any profit from this event and would have liked to see a smaller number of attendees,” said Tiffini Jackson, PSO’s vice president of external affairs. “But we had to take what was available at the time.”
