California’s grid operator is asking customers to limit electricity use during peak hours to help keep power flowing as a “heat dome” settles over the southwestern U.S.
But they were warned of this months ago.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned in May that California faced “significant risk of encountering operating conditions that could result in operating reserve shortfalls.”
Expected power demand is expected to outstrip California’s available generating capacity by about 5,000 megawatts on Tuesday, according to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).
Source: California Independent System Operator
Why the lack of energy supplies? CAISO expects high demand for air conditioning during the heat wave to outstrip supply owing to “reduced electricity imports, tight natural gas supplies” and high wildfire risk.
The grid operator issued a flex alert to customers on Monday and began mobilizing all available generating capacity. But that’s not enough, and CAISO is asking residents and businesses to cut their power usage to prevent “rotating power outages.”
This is exactly what NERC warned about, based on CAISO’s own assessment earlier this year. NERC found an increased risk of rolling blackouts as “a result of lower hydro conditions and the retirement of 789 MW of dispatchable natural gas generation that had been available in prior summers to meet high load conditions.”
“Natural gas limitations and pipeline outages could exacerbate these conditions,” NERC found.
Tens of thousands of Californians lost power in early July when a heat wave sent temperatures soaring, recording new records in the Los Angeles area. Air conditioning use put too much strain on the grid, overloading electrical distribution.
CAISO asked customers “to conserve electricity, especially during the late afternoon and evening when air conditioners typically are at peak use” for Tuesday and Wednesday when temperatures are expected to hit triple digits across much of southern California.
https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1021730234385793026
CAISO said customers “can help avoid power interruptions by turning off all unnecessary lights, using major appliances before 5 p.m. and after 9 p.m., and setting air conditioners to 78 degrees or higher.”
Read more at Daily Caller
Being one of the sweltering mass in LA, it is galling that Cal ISO allowed two nuclear power stations to be turned off in the past few years without suitable baseload replacement. Neither station was beyond repair, indeed San Onofre could have been refitted as Mitsubishi was ready to manufacture new cooling tubes. But moonbeam prevailed over sense and both the stations have been idled just in time for a cyclical pattern of high heat to return.
Just a word about solar… seems every other time I drive to Vegas I see Ivanpah sitting idle in the midst of a clear sunny day. I thought this was supposed to be a nearly continuous power station, at least when the sun is shining. If they want to do maintenance, they have this long period every day called NIGHT when there isn’t any danger of being fried by the mirrors.
/end-rant
Normally utilities file an annual resource plan that must be reviewed before their regulator approves all or part of them .
So either the CAISO is incompetent ,which is unlikely, or they have been directed to not
design for peak day requirements by the government or regulatory body . You know a supply side load shedder . Much more effective than all the “power smart ” demand side investments . Just shut the power supply off or don’t add supply and ta da objectives achieved .
Governments love to hide behind regulatory bodies until they want to by pass the regulatory body to do social engineering experiments or to empty the coffers of the utility .
Moonbeams big idea is to empty the state of industry and the middle class . Too bad he is bailing just as the S is hitting the fan .
I know it must indeed be bad in California when I note that our Ontario ( Canada ) government, bad as it was, at least had the nuclear generating stations refurbished and the natural gas backup constructed when the enormity of their power decisions became obvious. The hardest words to find in a political dictionary: we were wrong.
Moonbeam Brown dont have to worry him and his fellow liberal democrats already have their Air Conditioned offices and homes and their Generators in case of a big blackout
One thing has occurred to me that could be a factor in these bad decisions. Every since before World War II the power has always been there and always been reliable (if you discount the occasional storm damage). Having something always there creates complacency and people will assume it will always be there and not impacted by bad decisions. The fact is the power has always been there mainly through the use of fossils fuels with the help of hydro and nuclear. Taking away the reason for reliable power have an impact.
There is the potential for complacency in other areas. We have had food readily available for about 100 years. Thus, if activists hit other areas they could assume food will always be readily available. However, start messing with things such as the use of pesticides or artificial produced fertilizer and the assumption that food will always be plentiful could become false.
Have no sympathy for the folks in California who are convinced they are do-gooders and do everything that is bad to prove it. The voters there are quite ignorant and elect people who are even more ignorant to screw up their electrical grid. They’re trying to do the same thing the rest of the country, but our current president is, at least, slowing them down. Actually, the time has come to re-open or build new coal and gas driven power plants and scrap this “alternate power” nonsense for the incredibly bad idea which it is.
I got an idea!
Let’s give Elon Musk billions to install batteries. That should do it!
But golly gee, don’t restart those gas and coal fired power plants. That’s cheap. But bad. They produce plant food, er, I mean greenhouse gases.
Taking warnings that their actions endanger a power grid would interfere with the environmentalists’ agenda. They have ignored these warning in California and Australia where system outages from their policies have occurred. They are also ignoring these warnings in other locations where outages are a high risk.
Areas with aggressive green energy development will have to adapt to a new form of what is normal. Power rationing through rolling blackouts will be part of what is normal. For these unreliable power systems people are paying much higher power bills.
Higher prices for a significantly degraded service is something you can expect of liberals.