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As the state boils in a heat wave, California is reckoning with the biggest disruption to its power grid in nearly two decades — with rolling blackouts continuing for a second day in the middle of a devastating global pandemic.
PG&E announced on Twitter shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday that the state’s power grid operator had ordered another round of rolling outages.
“We know how important it is to have access to reliable power during these times, and we are doing everything we can to limit the impacts,” Michael Lewis, interim president of PG&E, wrote in a news release. “Our team is working diligently to keep these rotating outages as short as possible, so that there is no further impact to the grid. We appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to restore power to everyone this evening. We urge all of our customers to take immediate steps to reduce their power usage.”
At direction of California’s Grid Operator- PG&E has initiated a rotating outage impacting approximately 200K – 250k customers. More information to come. Please conserve energy. Thank you for your patience. https://t.co/O213eqyJpF
— PG&E (@PGE4Me) August 16, 2020
By 8 p.m., California Independent System Operator (California ISO), the nonprofit that manages the state’s power grid, announced power was being restored. An hour later, PG&E tweeted power was back on in most households.
PG&E estimated about 220,000 customers in the Central Coast and Central Valley, including Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Joaquin counties, were impacted.
PG&E’s announcement of shutoffs came just two hours after California ISO tweeted it “is expected to cover electrical demand.”
The #ISO is expected to cover electrical demand with no stage emergencies planned at this time. Follow grid conditions at Today's Outlook. https://t.co/3yNpeqLnOW
— California ISO (@California_ISO) August 15, 2020
When it later acknowledged it could not meet demand, California ISO blamed the unexpected loss of a 470-megawatt power plant Saturday evening, as well as the loss of nearly 1,000 megawatts of wind power.
PG&E was trending on Twitter as customers fumed about outages.
The latest disruption comes after PG&E shut off power to 220,000 customers Friday, initiating state-mandated rotating outages for the first time since the 2001 electricity crisis that cost then-Governor Gray Davis his job. On Saturday, PG&E pleaded with customers to conserve power through Wednesday.
“We really need everybody to pitch in and do their part to adjust their use of energy,” said PG&E spokeswoman Angela Lombardi. “So that means adjusting your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher, or turn it off when you’re away. Draw the drapes…Avoid using electric appliances and devices and vacuuming until maybe 6 p.m.”
Severin Borenstein, faculty director of The Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a member of the California ISO Board of Governors, worried whether the state will have enough power to meet continued high demand in the coming week.
“Monday is definitely looking like a real concern,” he said.
Continued power outages — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — could be devastating to an economy already reeling. The outages Friday disrupted many people’s ability to work from home, and as shelter-in-place orders have closed most libraries, coffee shops and other places with public outlets and wifi, they had few options to get back online. And outages on hot days can pose health risks for elderly residents — particularly those in low-income households less likely to have AC.
Those are the same populations already disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
Temperatures hit triple digits in several places around the Bay Area on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Gilroy recorded a record high of 108. Redwood City and downtown Oakland — with highs of 100 and 93, respectively — tied their previous records. And there’s little relief in sight, as the hot weather is expected to continue into the coming week.
California ISO began planning for this heat wave, and the anticipated increase in energy demand due to AC units running in overdrive, on Thursday, said spokeswoman Anne Gonzales. The organization told power plants they must stay online and defer scheduled maintenance.
But despite those precautions, several events unexpectedly converged Friday to overwhelm the power grid. Temperatures were hotter than expected, setting records in many places. Cloud cover in the desert — where the state generates the majority of its solar power — reduced solar energy production. Other Western states also suffered heat waves, meaning they had no extra power to divert to California. And it didn’t get much cooler when the sun set, so AC units ran into the night, as solar plants shut down.
Then another problem was thrown into the mix: Two of the state’s major power plants were not online when we needed them. A 750-megawatt plant had been out of service for several days. Another 500-megawatt plant unexpectedly shut down just as the state approached peak demand around 5 p.m. Friday.
California ISO did not identify the plants Saturday, or reveal why they went offline. PG&E spokeswoman Lombardi said she didn’t know anything about the two plants shutting down.
“We know that plants go off and online. I don’t think there was anything nefarious about this,” Gonzales said. “I just think it unexpectedly tripped. Those things happen quite frequently in our business. It’s just that it happened at a very poor time for us.”
Both of those plants were up and running again as of late Friday night, according to Gonzales.
Though demand Friday and Saturday did not exceed levels California ISO has seen in the past, Gonzales said the outages couldn’t be helped.
“I don’t know what you do with triple-digit heat that doesn’t stop over several days,” Gonzales said. “We had done everything we could.”
The outages are a “wakeup call” for the state as it increasingly moves toward renewable energy, Borenstein said. On a sunny day, California gets almost a third of its power from solar, he said. But it can be a challenge to produce enough energy in the evening, as solar plants shut down, but demand stays strong.
“There are some real concerns,” Borenstein said. “We are shutting down a lot of gas plants. And that’s what we should be doing. But we have to make sure we can maintain reliability while doing that.”
Paul Rogers and Jason Green contributed to this report.