Hot Season May Bring Southland Blackouts

Parts of Southern California could endure blackouts this summer if the region suffers from unusually hot weather, state energy officials said Tuesday in a newly revised forecast.

Power supplies in areas served by Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. could come up short by 1.5%, or 2,000 megawatts, during periods of peak demand in September, according to the forecast, which was released at a special hearing of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.

The potential for rolling blackouts like those that swept California during the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001 could be even greater if bottlenecks continue to jam the state’s overtaxed power transmission lines, Jim Detmers, vice president of the California Independent System Operator, the agency in charge of the state’s electricity grid, told the committee.

State energy regulators have issued several warnings in recent months of possible power shortages in Southern California during the coming summer, and the new forecast updates one released in December.

The energy outlook for Northern California is much better, according to the forecast, which was prepared by Cal-ISO, the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission. Hydropower is expected to be plentiful, thanks to heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada and upgraded connections that will make it easier to import power from the Pacific Northwest.

Power reserves in the north are projected to be a comfortable 27% if summer temperatures are normal -- a 1-in-2 possibility -- and 18% if the weather is abnormally hot, which has a 1-in-10 chance of occurring.

The Energy Commission hasn’t received a summer weather forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 1-in-10 formula is based on how much air conditioning is used in the state and for how long. The last summer that qualified as a 1-in-10 occurrence was 1989.

The expected surplus in the north most likely won’t be much help to the south, even after recent expansion of the key Path 15 transmission line in the San Joaquin Valley. The line, which was inaugurated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in December, can move excess power only from south to north, Detmers said.

The movement of more energy to the Los Angeles Basin is still impeded by another bottleneck just below the southern terminus of Path 15, he said.

The committee was gathering information before a new legislative session that is expected to pit businesses and industry, which want to bring more competition to the energy market, against consumer advocates, who favor a return to pre-1996 government regulation of California’s power system.

Currently, California is operating under a hybrid system and is struggling to get power plants and transmission lines built. The state needs far more transmission capacity to prevent an estimated 1,700 peak megawatts -- the equivalent of three or four power plants -- from being lost to transmission congestion.

Building new transmission lines along with new power plants is a top priority of the Schwarzenegger administration, said Joe Desmond, the governor’s top energy advisor. Other important initiatives include requiring that investor-owned utilities and other retail energy providers maintain a 15% reserve supply, beginning in 2006; boosting energy efficiency in buildings; encouraging imports of natural gas; and increasing the supply of renewable energy sources such as solar and geothermal.

Moving on all of these fronts is essential if Southern California is to avoid estimated electricity shortages of 15% or greater by the end of the decade, Desmond said.

In an encouraging sign Tuesday, Calpine Corp. and GE Energy, a unit of General Electric Co., announced plans to build a 775-megawatt power plant near Hemet in Riverside County. The advanced-technology, low-emission, gas-turbine generator will cost about $500 million.