An extreme heat wave that’s gripped California for at least a week will result in record level demands for power and perhaps rolling blackouts, according to the California Independent System Operator (Cal ISO), which operates the state’s energy grid.
This dire warning comes as record-setting temperatures have hammered the state and Southern California has had an excessive heat warning in place since last Tuesday.
Elliot Mainzer, president of Cal ISO, spoke at a Sacramento press conference on Monday, saying Californians have done well. Conservation, he said, has caused the demand for energy to be about 2% lower than forecast over the past two evenings.
“But we have now entered the most intense phase of this heat wave,” Mainzer said. “Forecasted demand for Monday and Tuesday is at all-time record levels. And the chances for rotating outages has increased significantly.”
The message state officials have repeated continually is people must reduce energy use between the peak hours of 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., which they call a "Flex Alert." Don’t use large appliances during peak hours, and pre-cool your home during the day so you can turn down or turn off the AC during peak hours.
Mainzer said Cal ISO has safeguards in place, such as energy reserves and power that’s imported from the Pacific Northwest, which is not suffering unusually hot temperatures. But if people don’t reduce their use to a sufficient level, the agency will have no choice but to tell utilities to “drop load,” which means blackouts.
“If we get to that point where all of these other tools that we have described — the energy, demand response, emergency response, our operating reserves – if those are exhausted, at that point we will be conveying to the utilities that it would be time to drop load,” he said.
Then it would be up to the utilities, such as San Diego Gas & Electric, to devise a plan for rolling blackouts, with the direction to keep them as short as possible.
Weather forecasters say we can’t expect the excessive heat alerts to go away anytime before Saturday.
“High temperatures on Tuesday will range from the mid-90’s to the low 100’s for the (inland) valleys,” said Elizabeth Schenk, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.” ”So there is going to be a very high heat risk there on Tuesday. Wednesday is going to be even a little bit warmer for the valleys.”
San Diego’s coastal regions have not been spared the humid heat. Schenk says Oceanside Harbor set a high temperature record of 95 degrees on Sunday.
What’s more, it’s not cooling down at night.
“San Diego, the airport, actually tied their all-time high minimum temperature record. That means the temperature did not fall below 78 degrees at all during the day (Sunday),” Schenk said.
Relief is expected this coming weekend. A surge of tropical moisture will arrive in Southern California late this week, bringing with it a chance of heavy rain and lower temperatures.
