The threat of rolling blackouts hovering over California formore than a month became a reality Wednesday when the state gridoperator (Cal-ISO) ordered them, first, for northern California,and later in the day spreading them to the southern half of thestate.

About 500 MW of firm load was dropped in the northern half as of11:41 a.m., according to Cal-ISO officials scrambling to findsupply to meet a relatively, small typical winter demand (30,000MW) in the nation’s most populous state. By 5:15 p.m. PST, theCal-ISO working with the state water resources department, obtainedan additional 1,300 MW for the hours of 5-6 p.m. Wednesday toprevent the need for statewide rolling blackouts. Blackouts arestill possible Thursday and Friday, and the morning hours areprojected to be “very tight,” meaning reserve levels could getclose to dipping below 1.5%.

“There’s still a chance that we will need to impose rotatingoutages throughout California for loads totaling anywhere from 500to 1,000 MW,” said Jim Detmers, Cal-ISO’s managing director foroperations. “It is very unfortunate we had to go through theoutages this morning, but it is very challenging for us here inCalifornia.”

This was the first supply-driven controlled outage on thestate’s electricity system. Rolling blackouts implemented in theSan Francisco Bay Area last June were called after transmissioninfrastructure problems occurred — not a shortage of megawatts.

Initial reports were that up to a half million customers betweenthe Oregon border and the Silicon Valley experienced blackouts inthe first wave shortly before noon Wednesday. Pacific Gas andElectric Co., which managed the controlled blackouts, said everyeffort was made to avoid shutting off critical facilities, such ashospitals and fire stations. Blackouts for any given customers weresupposed to last between 60 and 90 minutes.

At the time of the first wave, the Cal-ISO said there were morethan 11,000 MW of capacity out of service in the state for plannedor unplanned maintenance, but some 1,100 MW of that total had justgone off unexpectedly shortly before the rolling blackouts wereordered. A central coastal plant’s outage was the proverbial”straw” that made the rolling blackouts unavoidable, according tothe Cal-ISO.

Without a “concerted conservation effort” statewide, the Cal-ISOexpects to impose rolling blackouts today (Thursday), particularlywith the amounts of generating plants expected to continue to beunavailable because of planned and unplanned maintenance, saidTerry Winter, Cal-ISO CEO. Schedules coming into the Cal-ISO forThursday were running 18,000 MW short, double the shortages at thesame time on Tuesday.

“Northern California is very dependent on hydro, and when wedon’t have it in the North and Pacific Northwest (as is the casenow), we have to depend on gas-fired power from the South andSouthwest,” Winter said. “And in peak-demand times, there is awell-identified bottleneck (Path 15) in the state’s transmissiongrid for moving large amounts of power from the southern half ofthe state to the north.”

The shaky financial situation of the utilities and state’senergy operators did not have an impact on the adverse supplysituation and need for the rolling blackouts, Winter said.

In addition to the rolling blackouts of firm load, interruptiblecustomers have been forced off the grid repeatedly over the pastsix weeks in the many power alerts and near-miss rolling blackoutsituations. This means many energy sensitive commercial/industrialcustomers — such as plastics and industrial gas manufacturers —have had to shut down much more than they typically have had to dounder their favorably priced contracts.

Based on interruptible customers calling the Cal-ISO Wednesday,it appeared many are beginning to feel the effects more acutely,and many will be asking for ways to keep operating or be paid forvoluntarily shutting down during planned outage periods in thefuture.

The other major elements of California’s ongoing power crisisdid not impact the grid’s situation directly, Winter reiteratedseveral times during a conference call with news media andinterruptible customers. Although not touched by the prospect ofcontrolled blackouts, the city and county of Los Angeles this weekare examining the potential consequences of a Southern CaliforniaEdison Co. bankruptcy and the power needs of city and countyfacilities.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), thenation’s largest municipal utility serving the nation’s secondlargest city, was looking at a mounting unpaid bill from Cal-ISOthat reached $130 million, and Wednesday, LADWP General Manager S.David Freeman spent most of his day trying to assure city electedleaders that the cash-fat city utility does not have to stopsupplying its excess power, ranging from a few hundred to 1,000 MWon any given day, into the state market.

There were some signs this week of friction between the cityutility and LA Mayor Richard Riordan, who last week wrote Gov. GrayDavis expressing concerns about the mounting power crisis spillingover to the city’s residents who are currently enjoying adequatesupplies of relatively low-cost electricity. At its regularbusiness meeting Tuesday, LADWP’s governing board examined theissue and set an emergency meeting for this Friday to determine ifthe city utility can continue to sell to the California marketwithout some resolution of its mounting unpaid bill.

In the meantime, the city council is examining a resolution thatwould place the city on record as showing more forbearance incollecting its energy bill, and the elected Los Angeles Board ofSupervisors earlier this month passed a resolution asking for statelegislative permission for the county’s vast network of facilities,which includes a lot of Edison’s territory in addition to all ofLADWP, to get all of their electricity from LADWP.

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