By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. electric grid operators on Saturday stepped up precautions to avoid power shortfalls and rotating blackouts as frigid weather affecting nearly half the country's population ramped up stress on their operations.

If emergency shortages in the electric grid occur, the grid operator may order CenterPoint to implement "planned outages."

A Midwest power grid operator is warning companies that customers need to start conserving energy as demand grows due to a severe winter storm moving across the U.S.

By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. electric grid operators on Saturday stepped up precautions to avoid rotating blackouts as frigid weather hitting half of the country's population stressed their operations.

Midcontinent Independent System Operator asked residents Saturday to conserve electricity amid Winter Storm Fern to help maintain grid reliability.

Researchers on Friday said that Poland’s electric grid was targeted by wiper malware, likely unleashed by Russia state hackers, in an attempt to disrupt electricity delivery operations.

By Tim McLaughlin and Scott DiSavino Jan 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. power grid faces an elevated risk of disruption over the next several days as an Arctic blast and reduced gas supplies test the sturdiness of electric infrastructure vulnerable to the around-the-clock demands of data centers.

Nigeria's national grid collapsed due to multiple 330kV transmission lines tripping and generators disconnecting, the system operator (NISO) confirms.