California power grid manager issues Flex Alert for Thursday heat, rise in demands
.JPG "A view of the control room from an overlook room shows the power grid at the California Independent System Operator, or ISO, in Folsom in December 2018.")
California’s electrical supplies are tightening up again, and consumers are being asked to cut back their energy consumption to avoid rolling blackouts.
The Independent System Operator, manager of the state’s power grid, issued a Flex Alert notice starting Thursday at 3 p.m. The alert calls on Californians to turn up their thermostats and defer using washing machines and other heavy appliances until 10 p.m.
The ISO also issued a “restricted maintenance” notice, meaning power generators aren’t allowed to take their facilities offline for routine maintenance. That notice takes effect at 6 a.m. Thursday. The ISO also appealed to energy companies to make additional supplies available to the grid if possible.
The fall heat wave is expected to produce temperatures in the high 90s around much of the state, with the thermometer cracking 100 degrees in parts of Southern California.
The warnings come after the state endured two nights of rolling blackouts during the mid-August heat wave — the first since the 2001 energy crisis — and several near-misses since then. Parts of Northern California have also been hit with public safety power shutoffs — deliberate blackouts engineered by PG&E to reduce wildfire risks — including an outage earlier this week.
Officials blamed excessive heat that blanketed the West, although critics of California’s green-energy policies have said the problems have been exacerbated by the state’s heavy reliance on renewable energy supplies. Wind power can disappear with little warning, and solar power naturally fades as the sun goes down, putting strain on the grid. Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, has vowed not to retreat from the state’s commitment to green energy as climate change worsens.
It wasn’t immediately clear how serious Thursday’s conditions could get. The latest forecast from the ISO said power demands Thursday would peak at 43,401 megawatts — just slightly above Wednesday’s expected peak, and well below the consumption recorded during the August blackouts.
The haze from the Northern California wildfires could reduce temperatures, but could also lower the amount of electricity produced by solar panels.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 3:34 PM.