LAFAYETTE — Tens of thousands of Acadiana residents faced power outages Monday when utility companies implemented rolling blackouts to deal with heavy loads on the region’s electric transmission grid, officials said.

The controlled temporary outages affected customers of Lafayette Utilities System, Louisiana Energy and Power Authority, Cleco, SLEMCO and Entergy.

The companies began implementing the outages shortly after 6:30 a.m. and most had fully restored power by 10 a.m., according to news releases.

The Southwest Power Pool, a regulatory group that monitors the transmission grid for a nine-state region that includes Louisiana, instructed the utility companies to reduce loading on the high-voltage transmission system by 277 megawatts by interrupting customers’ electricity service, according to a news release by SPP.

The interruptions were necessary because of extremely high transmission loads caused by an unplanned transmission outage, unavailability of some local generation, and higher-than-expected demand during the cold weather, the release stated.

This is the first time the companies have had to implement rolling blackouts to deal with overloading on the transmission grid, LUS Director Terry Huval said.

The companies had warned of that possibility in June but managed to avoid rolling blackouts at that time.

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