Expansionary Institute

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

By Leonard Anderson

 
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 5 (Reuters) - California narrowly dodged rolling blackouts on Tuesday as emergency measures eased a dangerous strain on the power grid.

Hit by a double whammy of strong demand for power and a second straight day of lowered generating capacity, the state's grid operator was forced to send an urgent appeal for emergency supplies and cut power to so-called interruptible industrial customers.

Underscoring the severity of the shortage, local utilities asked the state's 33 million residents to turn off outdoor holiday lighting, turn down thermostats, and refrain from using household appliances until late in the evening.

"We seem to have avoided a stage three emergency due to a combination of factors," said Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator (ISO), the group that manages the state's transmission grid.

Stage three is the state's highest level of emergency, triggering rolling blackouts that would darken entire neighborhoods for up to an hour to prevent a collapse of the entire grid and serious damage to power equipment.

Dorinson said the state's interruptible customer program had been instrumental in avoiding blackouts and noted voluntary cutbacks had saved another 1,000 megawatts (MW).

"We thank Californians for heeding our appeals to conserve energy," he said.

A "Stage Two" emergency was called earlier on Tuesday, cutting service to certain industrial customers at 4 p.m. PST (7 p.m EST) and saving about 1,200 megawatts of electricity, enough to enable the state to meet a peak demand on Tuesday evening estimated at about 33,000 megawatts (MW) and avoid wider blackouts, the ISO said.

California has never resorted to statewide blackouts, despite coming close several times this past summer when air conditioning demand, on top of the usual daily power load, nearly toppled the grid.

SHORTAGE OF HYDROPOWER

The agency scrambled throughout the day to secure emergency power imports from the Pacific Northwest, Nevada and Arizona.

Imports of electricity from Oregon and Washington, however, have been reduced sharply due to a shortage of hydropower this time of year in the Northwest.

Federal energy officials in Washington, D.C., said they ordered 220 MW of emergency hydro power from the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona delivered to California to ease the strain on the grid and ordered federal facilities in the state to cut their use of energy.

Earlier Tuesday, the ISO said said more than 11,000 MW of generation, or about one-third of the state's generating capacity, was out of service, mostly for repairs.

Included in that number was a "substantial amount" of power production shut down because plant air emission credits had expired.

Some 2,700 MW of capacity was idled in Southern California due to a shortage of emission credits, industry sources told Reuters. The credits permit power plants to exceed certain emission standards.

The ISO was expected to ask the South Coast Air Quality Management District to ease restrictions to allow the plants to continue production.

Tuesday marked a second straight day of power emergencies in the state, and the ISO appealed to Californians to conserve their use of electricity, including waiting until at least 7 p.m. before switching on outdoor holiday lights.

On Monday, the ISO declared two power emergencies following the loss of two key transmission lines near Bakersfield, Calif. The lines were put back in service later Monday.

21:54 12-05-00

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