Summer-like temperatures are coming a little earlier than California officials had hoped as the California Independent System Operator implemented a Stage 2 power alert and expected modest rolling blackouts for the third day in a row Wednesday, struggling with what it called extreme high temperatures throughout the region and insufficient resources. A 750-MW unit was knocked out in the San Francisco Bay area in the afternoon, further worsening the situation.

On Wednesday, Cal-ISO said operating reserves were forecast to be below 5%. Rolling blackouts hit the state this week — the first in about two months — after Cal-ISO worked to keep enough power running through the grid.

The plan worked until this week, but warm weather and numerous power plant outages together proved too much for the grid, forcing hour-long blackouts affecting about 100,000 residential, industrial and commercial customers. Wednesdays blackouts, if necessary, were expected to involve only 300 to 500 MW and last for less than an hour, according to Cal-ISO’s grid operations director, Jim McIntosh.

Customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which operates independently of the state grid, were spared outages; not so lucky were the customers of California’s largest utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

More power plants are out of service this week than California officials had expected, with nearly 12,500 MW unavailable because of planned maintenance outages. The plant closings combined with higher spring temperatures, which ranged from the 70s along the Southern California coast to about 95 degrees in Sacramento. The statewide high was 104 degrees in Palm Springs. Officials said the temperatures were not nearly as high as those expected for this summer.

More warm weather was expected today as well, but officials were keeping their fingers crossed that a cool front expected would make it through by the end of the week.

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