Does California still have rolling blackouts? (San Diego, Berkeley: maintenance, place to live, costs)

[509]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Not a lot of mention of solar power in this article.

The power crisis was caused in part by the coronavirus restrictions, which have closed movie theaters, malls and other locations where people would typically gather to beat the heat. Concerns about outbreaks have kept many inside their homes with the air conditioning on,

The broiling conditions that began Friday may rival the deadly seven-day heat event of July 2006, the National Weather Service said.

Due to excessive heat driving up electricity use, California declared a statewide Stage 3 emergency Friday evening for the first time since 2001 and ordered utilities to implement power disruption programs.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said its customers were not affected because the department generates and imports its own electricity and was able to meet the city’s demand.

Severe heat wave causes rolling blackouts, dangerous conditions across California:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...oss-california

Thanks for the info.



Really no information on WHY??



I live in a small county in eastern Washington that owns two dams on the Columbia River and we sell LOTS of electricity to California. But this time of year, the Columbia River is pretty much at low flow


So is it lack of imports from the Northwest?? The nuclear plant Arizona?? The coal plants in Utah and New Mexico??

[Burkmere]

The best part of an ongoing series of "Why Living in CA is the absolute Best Place to Live"

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article244996275.html

[mgforshort]

We got one today starting at around 6:52 PM. The A/C went out and came on again 20 seconds later. Thanks, Generac.
I was watering plants on the deck and the temperature was 98 F* in heavy shade under our oak tree.

I hate to see what will happen when electric cars become mandatory and natural gas becomes harder to get to support the environment. The following is an alert from PG&E.


Posted on August 15, 2020
As Statewide Heatwave Continues, PG&E Encourages Customers to Conserve Energy through Wednesday Night
Rotating Power Outages Could Happen Saturday Night from 5:00 to 10:00 PM

California Grid Operator Monitoring Statewide Energy Usage, Coordinating with PG&E and the State’s Other Electric Utilities

Based on current power usage forecasts from the state’s electric grid operator, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), PG&E may be required to conduct rotating power outages Saturday night between 5:00 and 10:00 PM. A final decision by CAISO will be made later today.

[V8 Vega]

And they want to charge millions of electric cars, what a joke!

[Texamichiforniasota]

Originally Posted by Mike930

From what I read, this was northern and Southern California. It didn’t inconvenience us, but I’m sure some people were in the middle of cooking dinner when it happened.

Yes, but again, it depends on who your power supplier is. If you are in the city of LA, there are no rolling blackouts. Same with Burbank which has Burbank Water and Power. PGE, SoCal Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric were doing rotating blackouts. It's a little bit of an oversimplification, but if you have a municipally owned utility, you won't have rolling blackouts. If you have a privately owned utility like PGE, SoCal Edison, or SDG&E (which despite the name is not municipally owned), you might have rolling blackouts.

[CA4Now]

From the Sac Bee link in post #22: (Why are utilities deregulated? It's worked so poorly with phone companies and the airlines.)

"The blackouts, Friday and Saturday, are the first since the 2001 energy crisis, when the main culprits were rogue energy traders exploiting the loopholes in California’s newly-deregulated electricity market."

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by V8 Vega

And they want to charge millions of electric cars, what a joke!

Yeah, for those vehicles that use the charging function. Buy a NIO and it's a simple battery swap. Takes less time and will compensate for the lack of charging stations in the U.S. EV's are the future, like it or not.

[mgforshort]

However, some experts say California also is feeling the effects of dramatic changes in the way it produces electricity. Notably, the state relies a lot more heavily these days on solar power, a resource that is in ample supply during the day and naturally fades as the sun goes down. Friday’s blackouts began shortly after 6:30 p.m., as solar supplies were disappearing.

The above is from the Sacramento Bee, Sunday. The Green New Deal won't be painless. On our street 90% of homes have a generator, but if the State wants to reduce / eliminate natural gas the pain could be worse. The bad part is that usually power goes down when we need it the most, late afternoon, the hottest part of the day and everyone is home cooking dinner. It's like having a car which won't start when time is here to go to work in the morning.

[Mike930]

Does this happen to any other state? I google it and all that comes up is California.

[Glenview94602]

In Norcal, PG&E imposes artificial blackouts now just to avoid liability for wildfires.