How can the Southern power grid handle months of blistering heat with everyone blasting air conditioners, but can’t handle two days below freezing?

Question

How can the Southern power grid handle months of blistering heat with everyone blasting air conditioners, but can’t handle two days below freezing?

In: 1150

Answer 1

In general, in extremely cold times like there, there is a much larger temperature difference between the inside and outside of a home compared to warm summer days, so more work has to be done to maintain that difference.

Heat pumps (where gas furnaces are not used as a primary heat source) also tend to be less efficient at very low temperatures. As a result, performance may be inadequate and electrical heat will be used as a backup, which is even less efficient.

At my parents home in the middle of Alabama right now, their gas furnace at nearly an 80% duty cycle can barely maintain a internal temperature in the mid 60s, and so they’re also using space heaters in a bedroom for comfort.