Cal ISO Warns of Power Outages

<p><strong>FOLSOM<&sol;strong> – The California Independent System Operator &lpar;ISO&rpar; is alerting Californians to be ready for potential rotating power outages on Tuesday evening&comma; as the hottest weather of this historic heat wave is forecast to push electricity demand to an all-time high&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If outages are initiated&comma; consumers can expect to receive notifications from power providers on areas affected and time duration&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The ISO declared an Energy Emergency Alert &lpar;EEA&rpar; 2 for 4 p&period;m&period; to 9 p&period;m&period; tonight&comma; which signals to participants to bid more energy into the market&comma; and allows the ISO to tap into emergency demand response programs that provide financial incentives for<br &sol;>&NewLine;reducing energy use&period; The ISO is expected to declare an EEA 3 around 5&colon;30 p&period;m&period;&comma; one step away from ordering rotating power outages&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On Monday evening&comma; an emergency declaration pulled additional resources onto the system at a time when the grid was dipping into reserves and there was risk of further emergency action&comma; including power outages&period; Peak demand was 49&comma;020 megawatts &lpar;MW&rpar;&comma; but consumer conservation&comma; imports&comma; and emergency resources fended off outages&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Consumer and commercial demand response&comma; including Flex Alerts&comma; has been helping to extend sparse supplies at critical hours so far this week&comma; giving operators extra cushion in supplies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Yesterday&comma; demand response conservation was scheduled to save about 2&comma;000 MW of power when it was most needed&period; Emergency assistance added another approximate 800 MW of power on the system&period; This amount of energy was able to help tide the system over during the evening&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But tonight&comma; electricity demand is currently forecast at more than 52&comma;000 megawatts &lpar;MW&rpar;&comma; a new historic all-time high for the grid&period; As the state faces the hottest day in this prolonged&comma; record-breaking heat wave&comma; grid conditions are expected to worsen&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;