California Blackouts Looming
By Paul Homewood
With triple digit temperatures expected to hit the Southland over coming days, the California Independent System Operator on Tuesday warned that they could ask residents to cut power usage during peak hours to prevent strain on the state’s power grid.
The heat wave, expected to last through next week, has already brought sweltering weather to Southern California, with some regions hitting 110 degrees on Monday and Tuesday, with the hottest temps expected over the Labor Day Weekend, and as a result, Cal-ISO is worried that the amount of residents relying on air conditioning and other large appliances to stay cool could bring rolling power outages.
As a result, they issued a warning to the public that a flex alert, which calls for voluntary power conservation during the peak hours of operation from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
"Lowering electricity use during that time will ease strain on the system, and prevent more drastic measures, including rotating power outages,"Cal-ISO said, noting that the peak electricity demand could exceed 48,000 megawatts on Monday – the highest of the year.
Residents are urged to turn off unnecessary lights and appliances and completely shut down or at least set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher.
Cal-ISO has already issued a Restricted Maintenance Operations order that begins Wednesday and runs through next Tuesday, limiting maintenance operations between noon and 10 p.m. each day to ensure all power systems remain in service.
A flex alert was issued on Aug. 17 as well, when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees.
Rolling blackouts are possible in California this week, as temperatures soar. No doubt they will be blamed on global warming, but in reality temperatures of 95F are routine in LA in September:
The real culprit is of course the over reliance on renewable energy:
California has 53 GW of dispatchable capacity, including hydro power, after allowing for line losses. Demand can peak at over 50 GW in summer, so there is effectively no margin for outages. California does get about a third of its electricity from out of state on average, but in hot weather like this neighbouring states may also be short of supply.
In particular, natural gas power capacity has fallen from from 44 to 39 GW in the last ten years, and nuclear from 4 to 2 GW.
Meanwhile California has just announced plans to ban sales of petrol/diesel cars by 2035, and mandates that a third of car sales must be electric by 2026.
Californians are entitled to ask where the electricity to charge their cars will come from.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Well, let’s be under no illusion; these poor Californians are all helping to ‘Save The Planet’ so even though they’ll be seriously overheated they will all have big smiles on their faces, I’m sure!
Propensity for martyrdom is a powerful force.
You have to ask, why choose one of the hottest states to host the enormity of hi-tech companies with the myriad of data centres that all need cooling. Wouldn’t Alaska have been a better choice?
Via blackoutnews.de it seems that the data centres in west London have used up all the grid capacity so no additional housing – and anything else presumably – can be built until the grid is upgraded…in about 10 years time. Why so long? Guess where all the money for grid work is going?
‘Residents are urged to turn off unnecessary lights and appliances and completely shut down or at least set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher.’
I thought about reading the report to see if it says “don’t plug in your electric cars,” but why bother? Though it would define if they consider it ‘unnecessary.’
“I thought about reading the report to see if it says “don’t plug in your electric cars,””
I can save you the trouble:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/california-urges-avoiding-charging-electric-cars-ward-off-blackouts-heatwave-state-loses-solar-power-sun-goes/
Just WOW!
State says you have to go to electric cars.
State says you can’t plug in electric cars.
State cognitive dissonance.
At least it’s official.
California has always had blackouts, partly because it is heavily forested and lightning strikes and stupid people cause forest fires which bring down power lines. Nothing new. In LA they are known not as blackouts but ‘brownouts’, maybe because they tend to occur in high summer and the pollution in the LA basin becomes a funny brown colour. Didn’t experience any in the 1980s but have sat through one or two more recently.
“Protect the grid’ sounds rather like “Protect the NHS.”
In both cases they surely are intended to protect us?
Great chart! Re cars, expect to see a growing number of Nevada plates. Also stockpiling used cars looks like a good investment.
Looking at the California capacity figure changes over the last decade and then comparing them to the same figures from DUKES is like a carbon copy! In our case, a high winter demand from an anticyclone spreading from the Urals to the Mid Atlantic Ridge and we are screwed.
We’ve lived with higher temperatures than those Californian ones, and without air conditioning. Ceiling fans were enough to let us sleep. There’s a bit of knicker-twisting going on there.
I’ve lived in hot, humid weather in Queensland and New Jersey. That’s pretty vile without a/c unless you are young and fit.
They should have fitted a ‘go faster’ switch to their wind turbines 🙄
Great coverage of this topic by Tucker Carlson here: