Does California still have rolling blackouts? (San Diego: 2014, how much, to buy)

[CA4Now]

California’s power grid operator delivered a blistering rebuke Monday to the state’s Public Utilities Commission, blaming the agency for rotating power outages — the first since the 2001 energy crisis — and warning of bigger blackouts to come.

In their first public comments since the blackouts began Friday evening, officials at the California Independent System Operator described a “perfect storm” of conditions that caused demand to exceed available supply: scorching temperatures in California and across the western United States, diminished output from renewable sources and fossil-fueled power plants affected by the weather, and in some cases plants going offline unexpectedly when electricity was needed most.

But Stephen Berberich, the grid operator’s president, said the state could have been prepared for that perfect storm if only the Public Utilities Commission had ordered utility companies to line up sufficient power supplies.

During the grid operator’s board meeting Monday, Berberich faulted the commission for failing to ensure adequate power capacity on hot summer evenings, when electricity from the state’s growing fleet of rooftop solar panels and sprawling solar farms rapidly drops to zero but demand for air conditioning remains high. It’s a challenge that will only intensify as California adds more solar panels and wind turbines to meet its targets of 60% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% emissions-free power by 2045.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/...uts-caiso-says

[Elliott_CA]

Originally Posted by sav858

One weather event physically damaged and literally toppled power lines and the other one was just heat, how is that remotely the same? It’s terrible management that Wasn’t “planned” at all. They let it get to that point knowing we get heat waves every year. Our infrastructure wasn’t damaged, Iowa’s was. Do you seriously not see the difference there?

Of course Iowa's weather event was more severe. What Iowa and Calif have in common are extreme outlier weather events.

If you have 50,000 MW of generation capacity and your demand is 49,000 MW and going higher, how is ordering systematic rationing of power "terrible management"? Are you seriously advocating allowing the system to exceed capacity in an unmanaged manner, which could cause the infrastructure to be damaged and go down for days, weeks, months until repaired?

[Elliott_CA]

Originally Posted by Mike930

Good management?? LOL. Newsom disagrees with you.

"Let me just make this crystal clear: We failed to predict and plan for these shortages and that is unacceptable," Newsom said.“

Let the finger pointing begin. Newsom doesn't want to be recalled like Gray Davis was. The grid operator is blaming the utilities commission. The utilities commission will probably blame the utilities...

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by Elliott_CA

Of course Iowa's weather event was more severe. What Iowa and Calif have in common are extreme outlier weather events.

If you have 50,000 MW of generation capacity and your demand is 49,000 MW and going higher, how is ordering systematic rationing of power "terrible management"? Are you seriously advocating allowing the system to exceed capacity in an unmanaged manner, which could cause the infrastructure to be damaged and go down for days, weeks, months until repaired?

If your capacity is 50,000 MW you don't shut down a plant that kept it way above that like SONPP. You build to replace the output first. If you have any brains at all.

[looker009]

Looks like there will be rolling blackout today. It's projected that demand will be over capacity. Thankfully being I live in area under LADWP i do not have to worry about it.

[citizensadvocate]

I be curious though how does the power grid cope with heatwaves in other parts of the country. Heat storms like this had been common to occur from time to time coast to coast for most summers. Where the nights don’t cool down much. I would like to ask do anyone know whether Chicago, Illinois, Texas, Washington DC, Florida etc also often need to call flex alerts in weeks of extreme heat and deal with blackouts due to overheated power equipment? Or rolling blackouts to avoid catastrophic failure?
Incidential Power outages due to strong winds, lightning, hail, floods, floods arnt included. Though I do understand that the US as a whole should do a better job at building power lines protected from the elements.

California is still a developing country in terms of A/C penetration. Even in hotter inland locations half of the homes are still without central A/C and only a few of those have any window units at all. At least when compared to the DC area Where I believe nearly 70%-80% of buildings have central a/c and countless others have window units. Thus in CA it’s ridiculous to blame air conditioners for power shortage in the first place.

https://laist.com/2018/07/25/living_..._ac_needed.php

[Elliott_CA]

Originally Posted by Racer46

If your capacity is 50,000 MW you don't shut down a plant that kept it way above that like SONPP. You build to replace the output first. If you have any brains at all.

"Although SONGS (San Onofre nuclear plant) was a 2,200 MW plant, the CPUC proposal only authorizes a total of 1,000 MW to 1,400 MW of new resources to replace it. What about the rest?

The studies conducted to determine the exact amount of resources needed are very technical and complex and there are a variety of reasons why SONGS replacement resources are less than 2,200 MW. Primarily it is due to i) demand-side resources like energy efficiency reducing the amount of energy demanded, and ii) improvements to the transmission networks.

At its heart, the major problem caused by the retirement of SONGS was a loss of voltage support (the ability to maintain voltage levels) in the local areas around SONGS. That problem can be solved through demand side resources, like energy efficiency, which reduce the amount of voltage support needed in the first place; through transmission resources, like many of the improvements already undertaken by the California Independent System Operator (ISO), in addition to planned improvements in the ISO’s new Transmission Plan; and through generation resources, which are addressed in this CPUC proposal. Because there are transmission and demand side resources that have contributed to replacing SONGS, the Commission does not need to rely excessively on generation resources." Source

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Elliott_CA

Of course Iowa's weather event was more severe. What Iowa and Calif have in common are extreme outlier weather events.

If you have 50,000 MW of generation capacity and your demand is 49,000 MW and going higher, how is ordering systematic rationing of power "terrible management"? Are you seriously advocating allowing the system to exceed capacity in an unmanaged manner, which could cause the infrastructure to be damaged and go down for days, weeks, months until repaired?

AGAIN, allowing the system to get to that point is "terrible management". Knowing that solar power dies down when the sun sets and not planning some sort of storage capacity to mitigate that is "terrible management". Heat waves and corresponding spikes in electricity occur every summer. And knowing those heat waves are likely going to get hotter and longer and not planning to have enough power reserves is "terrible management". What other state do you see a summer heatwave cause rolling blackouts?

[Elliott_CA]

Originally Posted by looker009

Looks like there will be rolling blackout today. It's projected that demand will be over capacity. Thankfully being I live in area under LADWP i do not have to worry about it.

They just updated it to:

50,938 MW capacity
50,528 MW forecasted demand

That's cutting it close so my uneducated guess is there will blackouts ordered.

[Elliott_CA]

Originally Posted by sav858

AGAIN, allowing the system to get to that point is "terrible management". Knowing that solar power dies down when the sun sets and not planning some sort of storage capacity to mitigate that is "terrible management". Heat waves and corresponding spikes in electricity occur every summer. And knowing those heat waves are likely going to get hotter and longer and not planning to have enough power reserves is "terrible management". What other state do you see a summer heatwave cause rolling blackouts?

New York had heat wave blackouts in 2019 and in earlier years. Texas has barely averted blackouts on more than one occasion in the last ten years.


Here's the issue: if you build capacity to handle a heat wave that has less than 1% probability of happening in any given year, you end up with plants that sit idle for long periods of time. Then the utility customers end up paying higher rates for a lot of unused capacity. It's an economic decision where you have to balance cost vs. reasonable reliability.