Rotating power outages

General Questions
#1

OK - another question about power failures. It’s hot and humid enough up here that they have had to implement rotating brief blackouts to conserve power. First time I ever recall that happening in Alberta!

My question - I trust that the power companies have good reason for doing that; however what would happen if they just said “screw it” and didn’t bother doing anything? Brownouts? Likelihood of catastrophic failure?

#2

If the voltage gets too low, you’ll get brownouts. If it gets way too low, most of the grid will start to initiate protective measures and trip offline, resulting in a cascading blackout.