West’s Power Grid Jolted Again and Washington Feels the Heat

A third day of soaring temperatures and spiking electricity demand in the West continued to strain the state’s power grid Wednesday, sending sparks all the way to the White House.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told Congress that he is concerned that California may be hit by more rolling blackouts like the unprecedented power losses that rippled through Northern California on June 14.

The California Independent System Operator, which oversees the electricity flow for about 75% of the state, declared a Stage 2 power emergency in the afternoon and ordered the state’s three big investor-owned utilities to cut power to hundreds of customers, generally large commercial users, that have agreed to that option in exchange for lower rates.

Under Cal-ISO’s three-step monitoring system, Stage 2 means that power reserves have fallen below 5% and utilities can interrupt power to customers that have signed up for those cut-rate programs. In a Stage 3, reserves fall below 1.5% and rolling blackouts become likely to avoid system failure.

California has never suffered a statewide Stage 3 emergency, but local power grid problems on June 14 in the San Francisco Bay Area brought rolling blackouts to nearly 100,000 customers, the first deliberate blackouts in the state since World War II.

Richardson, testifying before the House Commerce Committee about national energy policy, said the White House is concerned about the reliability of the electricity grid this summer, particularly in California, the Pacific Northwest and New England.

California energy officials have said that the state may run short of electricity this summer if the weather is as hot as in the summer of 1998 but that power generation should be sufficient for a normal summer. California’s growing population and booming economy have swelled electricity demand, but no new power plants have been built for several years. Plants currently under construction will not be finished until next year at the earliest.

The state’s power system has been further strained this week because of an unusual heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, compounded by power-plant outages in California and in the Northwest, said Patrick Dorinson, spokesman for Folsom-based Cal-ISO, which began operating the state’s long-distance electricity transmission system in 1998 when California’s electricity industry was restructured.

Richardson said that California and the Northwest have been “barely able to avoid rolling blackouts” and that the problems in the region underscore how stressed the national power grid has become. Richardson and President Clinton both urged Congress to act on a complicated administration proposal to overhaul the nation’s power sector.

Dorinson acknowledged that California faces significant potential problems but denied that the state has been on the verge of blackouts in recent days.

“Clearly, we’re going to be in a tight situation this summer . . . but we think we have the reserves to make it,” he said. “We’re certainly doing everything we can to try to avoid any blackouts.”

When power supplies are tight, Cal-ISO issues a “Power Watch” warning urging all customers to conserve electricity. That call is intensified when a Stage 1 emergency is declared as power reserves fall below 7%.

With Wednesday’s Stage 2, Edison International’s Rosemead-based Southern California Edison utility reduced its electricity load by nearly 500 megawatts, San Francisco-based PG&E; Corp.’s Pacific Gas & Electric cut all 500 megawatts in its interruptible-power program, and Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric cut all 40 megawatts in its program.

Cal-ISO’s board of governors on Wednesday approved a PG&E; proposal to bring a 95-megawatt oil-fired generating unit by barge to San Francisco’s Hunters Point power plant for use when electricity supplies run critically short in the Bay Area.

“I don’t think we can afford not to take action,” said Cal-ISO Chairman Jan Smutny-Jones.

The board also discussed lowering the state’s cap on wholesale electricity prices of $750 per megawatt-hour. Recent high electricity demand has pushed power prices to record levels.

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The Associated Press and Reuters news services were used in compiling this report.