MEMPHIS, Tenn. — 20,000 MLGW customers lost power Monday on one of the coldest nights of the season, and the company's president says xAI wasn't the reason.
MLGW president Doug McGowen said while they are still getting to the root of what caused the outages, he believes wind gusts and a failed circuit breaker are to blame.
It all began Monday around 8:30 p.m. for MLGW customers inside the I-240 loop in areas such as Orange Mound, Midtown, and Berclair. McGowen told ABC24 all customers impacted had their power fully restored within three hours.
"There's been no physical damage we've seen to the system today, so we attribute it to the gusty winds that we saw," he said. "Could've been a couple of lines coming together or it could've been something blowing across the lines that caused those lines to trip off."
McGowen also blamed old infrastructure where the circuit breakers are located, and said that is a reason why the utility continues to invest to improve reliability.
"That's what happens sometimes when infrastructure is very old. That's why it's important for us to replace it before it fails," McGowen said. "That circuit breaking was 57-years-old; it was on the list to be replaced in this next five-year plan."
McGowen told ABC24 in more than 15 months, the company has completed 51% of its tree trimming project, which is expected to be completed within three years. He said this would reduce power outages.
Dozens of MLGW customers wasted no time questioning power overloads with some evening mentioning Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer on the utility company's Facebook page.
McGowen said he wants to reassure the public that the system was not overloaded and the power grid will be accessible when the xAI facility is operational.
"Last night's load on our system was 1500 Megawatts. MLGW's maximum capacity on our system today is 3500 Megawatts, so we're not even close to our limit. So this has nothing to do with power availability," he said. "This has nothing to do with xAI's installment. This is not the only outage that we've had although the numbers are low. I'm glad that they're infrequent and getting less and less frequent."
Environmental advocate, LaTricea Adams with Young, Gifted, and Green told ABC24, while she will give credit to MLGW for improving reliability, it's the history of rolling blackouts during the winter season that give people in the community cause for concern over xAI's power usage in the future.
"Without having clear concrete plans and resources to communicate that and convey that to customers, there's always gonna be this underlying fear until those questions have been answered," Adams said.
Adams believes if representatives with xAI spoke directly to the community about their concerns, maybe they would get the answers they are searching for. She said at this point, they just have to wait and see if and when issues in the future occur.
McGowen said they have a five-year plan to replace 10 circuit breakers each year. He said they are hoping to reduce the average age of their breakers, which could potentially lower system failures in the future.