After second night of rolling blackouts, will there be more? The threat climbs with temps

The managers of California’s beleaguered electricity grid appealed for conservation and more power supplies Sunday, hoping to stave off a third consecutive evening of rolling blackouts.

The California Independent System Operator, which runs the grid, issued a Flex Alert for consumers to curtail electricity usage between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. through Wednesday.

It was unclear amid cooler but highly unsettled weather Sunday — the result of thunderstorms fueled by Tropical Storm Fausto — whether another evening of blackouts was in store. But officials say the threat of more rolling blackouts will persist as long as high temperatures continue across California.

Earlier Sunday, the Folsom-based ISO held an emergency board meeting to discuss “system operations” and other matters, but the meeting was closed to the public. The ISO, a nonprofit public benefit corporation set up by the state to run the grid, didn’t explain why the meeting was private.

Although the system appeared Sunday afternoon to have ample reserves — about 9,000 megawatts more than needed, enough to power about 6 million homes — the situation on the grid can change quickly.

That’s what happened Saturday night as the state buckled under the weight of a scorching heat wave. The ISO had been confident throughout Saturday that it wouldn’t need more blackouts, but grid conditions rapidly went south after a major power plant malfunctioned. The ISO declared a Stage 3 emergency at 6:28 p.m., said ISO spokeswoman Anne Gonzales.

Gonzales said the emergency ended 20 minutes later, meaning utilities would begin restoring power.

PG&E cuts power on coast, around Stockton

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said the outages in its territory Saturday were in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Joaquin counties. The 220,000 customers were about as many PG&E customers who were hit Friday night. Southern California Edison, which parcels rotating outages in small sections across Southern California said 70,000 of its customers briefly lost power. Customers of San Diego Gas & Electric apparently weren’t affected.

PG&E’s blackout map showed about roughly 65,000 customers without power in the Stockton area and about 3,600 in Walnut Grove, in the far southern edge of Sacramento County. By 8 p.m., only about 55,000 customers in PG&E’s territory, which spans a wide swath of the state, remained offline.

Most customers who were affected returned to the grid around 9:30 p.m. “It’s a longer process to turn people back on,” said Angela Lombardi, a PG&E spokeswoman.

The blackouts didn’t affect the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which isn’t part of the ISO grid.

Earlier in the day, PG&E warned that blackouts were possible Saturday afternoon. The ISO, however, continued to say it believed it would get through the day without any serious problems.

Then, shortly after 6:15 p.m., it declared a Stage 2 emergency, which meant it was telling utilities to take power away from “interruptible” customers — those who agree to surrender electricity during crunch period in exchange for incentive rates. Less than a half hour later, with the grid’s power situation rapidly deteriorating, it went to Stage 3, triggering the start of blackouts.

Later, the ISO said the Stage 3 emergency became necessary when a 470-megawatt power plant went offline unexpectedly, and about 1,000 megawatts of wind power disappeared. The ISO was able to end the emergency quickly after wind generation picked up again.

The blackouts are the first major outages of any kind to hit the state since PG&E instituted a series of “public safety power shutoffs” last fall to reduce wildfire risks. They’re also the first rolling blackouts imposed by the ISO since the 2001 energy crisis, when the main culprits were rogue energy traders exploiting the loopholes in California’s newly-deregulated electricity market.

This time, officials at the ISO say the problem lies with the weather. It was 106 degrees Saturday night in Sacramento. The high temperature in downtown Sacramento was recorded by the National Weather Service was 111 degrees, shattering the record of 108 set a century ago.

Why do rolling blackouts happen?

The reason for the deliberate outages is simple: Demand outstrips supply.

Electricity is used the instant it’s created, and the grid requires a balance of power being generated and used to stay intact. During this latest heat wave, which is forecast to last through Wednesday, the amount of electricity that’s required can outstrip what power plants, solar panels and wind turbines can produce.

When the supply of power is expected to be less than the grid’s needs, the ISO has to shed users to keep the load from dominating one side over the other. The ISO orders the three investor-owned utilities, including PG&E, to do just that.

However, all energy companies in the Western U.S. and Canada are interconnected: A failure in one place, which the rolling blackouts are meant to prevent, could bring down the entire machine.

Complicating this is the size of the heat wave. The high-pressure mass centered over the Las Vegas reaches into California, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Temperatures have solidly sat above the century mark in Sacramento and many places in California since Thursday.

The rest of the West, however, has been above-normal temperatures too, leaving California with fewer places to tap for extra power.

Coronavirus, heat create perfect storm

Ana Matosantos, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cabinet secretary who leads the administration’s energy policy work, said the current grid problems are partly due to shifting energy demands during the pandemic. Energy consumption has been harder to predict since Newsom imposed a stay-at-home order to slow the spread of COVID-19, which shifted energy consumption to residential buildings and out of commercial ones.

“Unfortunately, it’s a confluence of situations that are creating a short-term perfect storm,” Matosantos said. “It’s not a fundamental break in our system as 2001 was. It is a temporary overload based on weather and shifting patterns due to COVID-19 affecting (the ISO’s) ability to plan.”

Meanwhile, the demand for electricity is expected continue Monday and Tuesday. On Saturday, a 100-year-old record for highest temperature of 108 degrees was shattered as downtown Sacramento baked at 111 degrees. The Executive Airport was 109 degrees, breaking last year’s record of 105 degrees.

Forecasters say the temperatures could inch even higher by Tuesday as the heat wave makes its final surge. That means the threat of blackouts will surge alongside those air conditioners, which have to work harder as the mercury climbs.

“Every time the temperature goes up a degree or two, it affects the grid,” Gonzales said.

This story was originally published August 15, 2020 at 6:53 PM with the headline "After second night of rolling blackouts, will there be more? The threat climbs with temps."