With heat wave looming in California, electric grid manager issues conservation warning

The temperatures will hit triple digits again next week. And that means the operators of California’s electricity grid are getting worried.

With two days of rolling blackouts still fresh in their memory, managers of the grid warned Californians on Friday that conservation measures might be issued next week.

Already, the California Independent System Operator has told power generators and transmission line owners to delay scheduled maintenance if possible. The order takes effect next Wednesday at noon and runs through Friday night.

The ISO said ordinary Californians next week could receive “Flex Alerts,” which are voluntary calls for conservation. The alerts would likely be issued between 4 and 9 p.m., when the hottest temperatures set in and the volume of solar power diminishes.

The grid was overwhelmed when temperatures topped 110 degrees in much of the West during a heat wave last August. The result was two nights of rolling blackouts — the first since the 2001 energy crisis, when supplies were being manipulated by Enron and other companies. Several additional nights of blackouts were narrowly avoided.

Since then, utilities and others have added approximately 3,500 megawatts of new capacity, enough to power roughly 2.6 million homes. Elliott Mainzer, president of the Independent System Operator, said in early May he has “some guarded optimism” that the state will have enough power to get through the summer.

Since then, the drought has intensified significantly, with state officials saying nearly 700,000 acre-feet of water has evaporated or seeped into dry soil instead of reaching California’s reservoirs. That’s likely to hinder hydroelectric supplies this summer.

The National Weather Service said temperatures could reach 105 degrees in the Sacramento area on Thursday.