This article discusses these potential plans, see here.
There is no guarantee that this will happen but potential rolling blackouts are being talked about for this winter. Have you done anything to get ready, just in case it happens?
No matter what heating you have, oil, gas or electric, they all need electricity to ignite and pump the hot water around. So heating your home during these times of power cuts may be problematic. What can you do? Think and try to sort something out.
It's no good thinking about anything that plugs in as there may be no electricity. Calor gas fires are available but then you need to think about ventilation and carbon monoxide alarms. We have just changed ours as it recently started beeping to signal end of life of the device itself.
Do you use gas or electricity to cook your food, boil water for drinks?
Let's all chip in and have a discussion on how we can help each other prepare for this.
Keeping warm in an emergency involves keeping yourself warm, rather than a room or your entire house. You can buy battery operated blankets and clothing but you need a good supply of said batteries. Start getting these now. Failing that thermal underwear, lots of layers of clothing and blankets. Don't forget gloves, hats and extra thick socks/slippers to keep feet warm.
Woodburners are great for those of us that have them but get your logs now. The guy we ordered ours from recently, says they are run off their feet, and he wasn't sure if everyone would be able to get what they needed before winter sets in. Also kindling, newspaper, firelighters, matches. Get a good supply now. We can make toast, heat small amounts of food and water on ours if necessary.
If you will need to rely on hot water bottles to heat you or hot water to make drinks, how are you going to heat the water? We have a one ring canister low gas cooker, rather than the old fashioned tall camping stoves. It is capable of boiling water in a camping kettle/saucepan. We can make hot drinks, cook simple meals on it. We have bought extra canisters and may still buy more. What about those simple meals, have you got some in?
How about lights? Candles are all well and good and we have those but can be dangerous if not put somewhere safe to avoid setting fire to things nearby. Always have ways of putting out simple fires should they occur. We have several oil lamps although not the kind that have the glass lanterns on them which give out more light. We have oil for our lamps but could get more so must check our supply.
Torches are great but you need batteries or will need to invest in wind up torches for short use. LED lanterns come in handy but again, batteries. If you need to be hands free get head torches. They are safe to use, give out a very bright focused light and are quite comfortable to wear. Again, batteries needed but wind up ones can be bought.
Garden solar lights can be left to charge outside during the day and brought in at night to offer some light.
Any other ideas that might be of help to us?