California issues rare electricity alert as scorching heat wave strains power supply

Amid a stunning heat wave, the manager of California’s power grid warned Friday that electricity supplies are being strained to a degree not seen in almost 15 years.

With multiple days of 100-degree weather looming, the California Independent System Operator issued a Stage 2 emergency alert and urged Californians to conserve energy. It was the first time the power grid had reached Stage 2 since a heat wave in 2006.

Stage 2 means consumption was so high that California had become “reserve deficient,” meaning in effect the state was eating into its margin for error. A Stage 2 gives the ISO the authority to order power generators that had been idle to start supplying electricity to the grid.

It’s also the last stage before the ISO anticipates that rolling blackouts will begin — something that hasn’t happened since the energy crisis in 2001.

With temperatures expected to top 110 degrees next week, the heat wave represents the biggest strain on power supplies in years.

Just hours earlier, the ISO had issued a far less urgent Flex Alert, in which residents were urged to turn up their thermostats to 78 and take other steps to reduce energy use.

“We need all the generators to be ready to go online,” said ISO spokeswoman Anne Gonzales.

Gonzales said the ISO also warned some big commercial customers, such as factories or offices, that they could potentially lose power Friday afternoon under the state-run “demand response” programs. Under these voluntary programs, participating customers get a break on their power rates if they agree to scale back their power consumption when supplies are tight.

These programs could free up as much as 600 megawatts of power, she said.

SMUD issued its own call for conservation, although it said it believes it has enough power to get through the heat wave.

“First and foremost, we want people to stay safe,” said Frankie McDermott, chief energy delivery officer at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, in a prepared statement. “We have enough power resources to meet demand, barring a regional or state grid emergency, and we have additional crews available to quickly restore power in the event of an outage.”

The National Weather Service is calling for extreme heat over the next several days, with the thermometer topping out at 113 degrees early next week.

“I suspect this event will probably end up being one of the most significant widespread California extreme heat events in the past decade, if not longer,” said Daniel Swain, a prominent UCLA climatologist. “I expect sustained extreme temperatures of this magnitude to produce widespread human health, wildfire, and electrical power supply impacts. Some of these impacts will undoubtedly be amplified by the ongoing pandemic. This will be an event to take quite seriously.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom chimed in with his own warning, telling reporters at a coronavirus briefing: ““If you wanted to remind your kids when you walk out of a room to turn the lights off, this is the time to do it, particularly between the hours of 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.”

Overall, California has far more supply capacity than it did 20 years ago, when the energy crisis led to several days of rolling blackouts. Those blackouts were caused in part by deliberate “market gaming” tactics employed by rogue companies like Enron Corp., whose traders exploited flaws in California’s newly deregulated power system and withheld electricity from the grid to jack up prices.

Since then, more power plants have been built, the ISO has created safeguards against market manipulation and utilities are required to line up extra power ahead of time as a cushion against heat waves.

But the state still has its vulnerabilities.

Notably, about one-fifth of California’s electricity supply Friday was expected to come from solar power. But solar supplies tend to taper off in late afternoon and early evening — when demand usually peaks. The problem is being exacerbated by a tropical storm that has created some cloud cover in parts of the state.

“Remnants of tropical system Elida will bring cloud cover to areas of California through this event, reducing solar generation, which leads to tighter energy supplies,” the ISO said.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has closed offices and forced Californians to stay at home, also complicates the picture. Forecasts of electricity usage “are predicated on history, and historically people went to work on weekdays,” said Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at UC Berkeley and member of the ISO board of governors.

Borenstein said residential power usage is obviously soaring with millions of Californians stuck at home. But less electricity is being consumed in offices. “How does that net out? That’s going to be really hard to tell .... “There is more uncertainty than there has been historically.”

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 9:14 AM with the headline "California issues rare electricity alert as scorching heat wave strains power supply."