Large-scale power outages leave thousands without electricity in Anchorage and Mat-Su

Updated: 16 minutes ago Published: 52 minutes ago

Thousands of homes and businesses were without power in Anchorage and Mat-Su on Monday evening, apparently in the form of a widespread outage.

More than 42,000 members were affected by a major power outage in Anchorage, according to an outage map provided by the Chugach Electric Association. In the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, more than 19,000 customers were without power, according to the Matanuska Electric Association.

Both Chugach Electric and MEA said in social media posts that the utilities had experienced a major “load shedding” event.

“This appears to be a type of load shedding that occurs when a major power generation source fails somewhere along the Railbelt,” Chugach Electric said in the post.

The utility is “increasing power generation in other areas to bring our members back online” while it works to determine the cause of the load shedding, the statement said.

Similarly, the MEA announced that the utility had experienced a power outage “caused by other Railbelt suppliers going offline.”

“Several thousand of our members are currently without power. Power should be restored in the next 30 minutes as additional engines at the EGS power plant come online,” the utility said.

Chugach Electric added that residents only need to call the utility if they see a hazard that needs to be reported.

This is a developing story and will be updated.