Blackouts

Utilities across the country are facing a shortage of transformers heading into peak storm season, when the critical gear for delivering electricity is most at risk of destruction.Wait times for transformers, used to move electricity from higher to lower voltages, have quadrupled and are averaging well over a year, utilities say, raising the likelihood of prolonged power outages during hurricane season. Companies are trying to share limited inventories as they face increasingly strong storms, replace aging…

As a deadline approaches for Russia to resume supplying natural gas to Germany this week, European officials and executives are growing concerned about a cascading economic fallout that would spread across the continent should Moscow keep the tap shut.The Nord Stream pipeline that ferries gas from Siberia to Germany closed last Monday for annual maintenance that is expected to last 10 days. Many in the West fear that Moscow might prolong the closure, possibly permanently, and deprive Germany, Europe’s industrial…

One of Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, Rogers Communications Inc., RCI -1.02% reported Friday outages across its nationwide network, affecting millions of its wireless phone and home internet customers, and hampering electronic-banking transactions. As of late Friday afternoon, Toronto-based Rogers said it was making progress in resolving the outage, which some customers reported started as early as 4 a.m. ET on Friday…

A gigantic sunspot has swelled to twice Earth's size, doubling its diameter in 24 hours, and it's pointed right at us. The sunspot, called AR3038, grew to 2.5 times Earth's size – making the sunspot roughly 19,800 miles, or 31,900 kilometers, in diameter – from Sunday (June 19) to Monday night (June 20), according to Spaceweather.com, a website that tracks news about solar flares, geomagnetic storms and other cosmic weather events.   Sunspots are dark patches on the Sun's surface where powerful magnetic fields, created…

An aging, polluting coal power plant in Missouri was headed for retirement this year. But because the region’s grid operator needs the plant’s electricity to reduce the risk of blackouts, it likely will keep running for several years longer.The push to delay the closure of the Rush Island power plant, a 46-year-old generator south of St. Louis owned by Ameren Corp. AEE -2.60% , shows the difficult decisions that utilities and power grid officials face as projected…

According to the calendar, it’s not yet summer in the Northern Hemisphere. But in many parts of the world, the weather would indicate otherwise. A crippling heat wave created the hottest spring on record in India and Pakistan. Europe saw a heat wave of its own in May, with the temperature reaching historic highs across the continent. And in the United States? Surprise: unprecedented heat wave! Dozens of states saw spring temperatures at the highest they’ve ever been. In Texas, the heat was bad enough to knock six power…

California’s grid operator said Friday that it anticipates a shortfall in supplies this summer, especially if extreme heat, wildfires or delays in bringing new power sources online exacerbate the constraints. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which oversees a large regional grid spanning much of the Midwest, said late last month that capacity shortages may force it to take emergency measures to meet summer demand and flagged the risk of outages. In Texas, where a number of power plants lately went…