California Suffers 2nd Day of Blackouts as Wind, Solar Power Falter
By Paul Homewood
h/t stewgreen
And they are surprised?
California suffered a second day of rolling electricity blackouts on Saturday evening as the state’s power grid struggled to deal with a heat wave that caused a surge in consumer demand.
There was widespread public confusion, as the state’s electricity grid operator had said earlier in the day that no blackouts would be necessary.
Bay Area public radio station KQED reported:
The California Independent System Operator, the agency that manages the state’s complex power grid, had expressed optimism as late as 4:30 p.m. that no emergency declaration would be necessary.
An emergency Friday night — formally known as a Stage 3 System Emergency — had prompted [Pacific Gas & Electric] and other major utilities to conduct rotating blackouts in their service areas. The rolling outages were the first imposed in the state since the electricity deregulation crisis of 2001.
In the Bay Area, the most extensive Friday night outages took place in the North Bay. PG&E said those outages affected about 220,000 customers.
Saturday night’s Stage 3 emergency occurred as most of California endured a second straight day of triple-digit temperatures. The demand for air-conditioning across the state drove consumption levels nearly as high as they had been on Friday.
Critics suggested that the blackouts should not have been necessary, since the state had contracted to buy more power than was demanded on Friday and Saturday.
Officials 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,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. In addition, cloud cover over the desert meant solar energy was in short supply.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paul, looking at Gridwatch I think we resorted to Coal again today.
When are they going to own up to the fact that Green doesn’t work?
Definitely a seam of coal running through the gridwatch graph today
“In addition cloud cover over the desert meant solar energy was in short supply.”
Well, yes that is a problem with solar panel farms. Wind farms are also subject to Nature’s whims. Nobody should be surprised.
Mind you I doubt if we will see anything in the MSM and Beeb about coal having to be used twice in one week because Wind & Solar are crap.
“…Wind and Solar are crap.”
If only! You can burn crap.
Oh! And the CAUSE of this particular distribution of heat is our new best friend, the bendy jet stream.
And we are closing our remaining coal mines, yet importing from abroad. It’s madness.
Whah! Whah! Whah!
Does schadenfreude make me a bad person?
‘Critics suggested that the blackouts should not have been necessary, since the state had contracted to buy more power than was demanded on Friday and Saturday.’
That’s right. Just keep thinking you don’t have a supply problem.
I do wonder whether all they thought they were going to get via the interties actually came their way. Perhaps they no longer accept coal fired power from Four Corners.
Bay Area public radio station KQED:
“The rolling outages were the first imposed in the state since the electricity deregulation crisis of 2001.”
That is true, but that was the tail end of the crisis. They always do and have attempted to hide the fact that the official CA energy crisis – the rolling blackouts, etc. began early (June) in the summer of 2000. Had stage 3 emergency in Dec of 2000. Jan, 2001 had serious blackouts, etc. They – the media – do this because they don’t want it associated with the Clinton administration – wanted to push it off on Pres Bush.
And of course, there was this:
“The California ISO estimated that from May 2000 to February 2001, power generators charged Californians $6.7 billion more than a competitive marketplace would otherwise warrant. They have recently updated those figures through May, and the overcharges are now $8.9 billion….”
New world temperature record:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53788018
(But only because they deleted the earlier ones they don’t believe!)
When it comes to power generation, California leaders seem to have had a sanity blackout for many years.
Ha ha!
SURPRISE !!! SURPRISE !!! SURPRISE !!! As old Gomer Pile (Jim Nabors, in Gomer Pyle USMC) would say. If the shoe fits, wear it. Regards, gsrsr
What irritates me most, even more than the clearly obvious madness, is the over-complicated, convoluted and obfuscating contracts for this, that and contracts for imbecility. Just provide the freaking power 24/7, it’s not as though the people are paying less for all this ‘free’ engergy.
Wonder when we will see this reported by the “impartial” BBC and that shocking rag the Gruaniad…no time soon is my view.
Also Anyone else out there as sad as I am and using their time to write complaints to the B(LM)BC? I ask because recently they almost completely stopped even though I always tick the box requesting a reply. Is this the next stage of their denialism, the next level of how to deal with off the narrative challenges which is just to ignore them?
The next stage of denialism is already here. There is a world of denial that humans can mitigate the Earth’s climate by permanent capture and burial of oxidized carbon. Enough CO2 to make a difference to the climate. To reach a Net-zero goal. It isn’t even discussed enough to be denied. It’s ignored.
All along California has been bragging about their renewable energy “capacity”. That “1GW” they lost is really more like 150MWH in reality but they keep using name plate ratings to fool the public. As their electricity rates go up their availability goes down yet the people don’t seem to be complaining as their mushrooming continues.
In the good old days (anybody else remember them?), it was the norm to maintain abut 20% capacity margin.
Youngsters lack the imagination to see the consequence of what they wish for, taking reliable electricity for granted.
Some of us remember the misery (and the disgusting taste/small) of Paraffin lamps and cookers and 3 day weeks.
I fear that the under-30s these days have a poor grasp of historical precedent and thus are due to make the same – and worse – mistakes again.
Watts is quoted here
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/californias-electric-grid-is-near-collapse/