(Updates to add outage numbers, comments from Texas officials, Calpine and NRG Energy.)
By Mark Peters
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Power providers in Houston and along the Texas Gulf Coast reported massive outages from Hurricane Ike Saturday, but were only starting to assess damage inflicted on the electric grid by the storm.
State officials said an estimated 2.8 million utility customers were without electricity, with area power plants shutting because of storm damage and lack of demand.
Utilities were just beginning to inspect hundreds of miles of poles and wires to assess the damage from Ike, which made landfall early Saturday as a Category 2 storm with sustained winds of 110 mph. They were waiting for the storm to pass and search-and-rescue operations to end to begin their assessments.
Entergy Corp. (ETR) said early reports showed "significant" damage in its Texas service territory along the Louisiana state line. It reported nearly 100% of its 395,000 customers were without power, making it the worst outage in company history, far surpassing Hurricane Rita in 2005.
"We are seeing more extensive damage," said David Caplan, a spokesman for Entergy, who estimated it could take more than three weeks to completely restore power to customers.
CenterPoint Energy Inc. (CNP), which delivers power to most of the Houston area, said 2.1 million of its 2.26 million customers were without power. The company's high-voltage power grid suffered damage as well. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state's power grid, said 95 transmission lines in CenterPoint's territory had been disabled by the storm.
Transmission lines make up the high-voltage grid that moves bulk power. The electricity is then delivered to homes and business through a secondary system of smaller lines and poles known as the distribution system.
Until inspections are done, it is difficult to know the degree of damage to the transmission system and why power isn't flowing through disabled lines, said Terry Hadley, a spokesman for the Texas Public Utility Commission.
"It's hard to make a fair assessment until we get out and look," said Kevin Fuller, a spokesman for Texas-New Mexico Power Co., a subsidiary of PNM Resources Inc. (PNM), which had power out to 113,000 customers in the Gulf Coast area.
Additionally, Oncor and a collection of small electricity cooperatives have about 155,000 customers without power, Hadley said.
Entergy's utility companies in Louisiana experienced massive damage to the grid's high-voltage transmission backbone there from Hurricane Gustav. Utilities are still restoring power to customers in the neighboring state almost two weeks after the storm.
Getting power back following Ike will be essential to restart oil refineries, many of which shut down ahead of Ike but appear to have suffered little damage from the storm. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated Friday that 3.55 million barrels a day of refining capacity in the Gulf has been shut in, or more than 20% of nationwide capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.
"That will be a key part of the assessment process," Hadley said.
As for power plants, Entergy shut two in Texas on account of Ike. Both Lewis Creek, a 460-megawatt power plant near Willis, Texas, and Sabine, a more than 1,800-megawatt plant in Bridge City, Texas, were closed.
Sabine, which was shut ahead of the storm, experienced flooding and could take weeks to return to operation. Lewis Creek was shut down because of storm damage to the grid and will be able to restart as power is restored, the company said.
Ike appears to have had little affect on power plants owned by major independent power producers, which sell electricity into the Texas wholesale market. Calpine Corp. (CPN) and NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) both operate plants within the storm's path. Neither company reported significant damage from the storm.
An NRG spokesman said it shut down one of its smaller Texas plants because of a drop in power demand from the widespread outages. Its other Texas plants remain operational, including the South Texas nuclear plant, which continued to operate throughout Ike. Wind speeds at the nuclear plant about 90 miles south of downtown Houston did not reach hurricane strength, which would have required its shutdown.
Calpine has seen only minor damage at its plants in Ike's path, including large facilities in Deer Park, Baytown and Freeport, said Calpine spokesman John Flumerfelt.
Several of the company's plants aren't operating, he said, because of reduced demand from widespread power outages and the shutdown of oil refiners. Calpine plants supply refineries along the Houston Ship Channel.
-By Mark Peters, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4604; mark.peters@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 13, 2008 17:47 ET (21:47 GMT)