California is calling for emergency electricity supplies as soaring temperatures drive up demand for power.
(Bloomberg) — California is calling for emergency electricity supplies as soaring temperatures drive up demand for power.
The state’s grid operator ratcheted its energy emergency to the second of three levels after 1 p.m. local time Wednesday. It warned California could face power shortfalls.
A level-two declaration allows the state to dip into emergency resources, such as temporary generators and unplugging ships from the grid, that wouldn’t otherwise be available.
With temperatures still high, the grid operator said emergency measures will be in effect from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time, and is asking residents and businesses to reduce power consumption.
Excessive heat warnings stretch from the Oregon border, across the state and into neighboring Nevada and Arizona, driving up demand for power to run air conditioners. In Southern California, Burbank may reach 109 Fahrenheit (42.7 Celsius), which would be at least a high for the date, and Riverside could get to 109, according to the National Weather Service.
Electricity demand is expected to reach 51 gigawatts at about 4:45 p.m., according to the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the power grid. That’s just short of the all-time high of 52 gigawatts reached Tuesday evening, Caiso said.
That prompted the agency to implement its highest-level energy emergency Tuesday evening, warning that rolling blackouts may be needed. While the grid operator didn’t need to take that step, some local utilities cut power anyway.
In declaring the level-2 emergency Wednesday, the agency is anticipating “an energy deficiency” even with every available power plant in operation, and is encouraging people to voluntarily curtail energy use.
The heat is expected to slip, but only slightly, for the next few days.
“It is going to stay hot through Friday but not as extreme as we saw yesterday,” David Rowe, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Wednesday. “It will be 105 to 110, so we won’t say it’s cooler — just not as hot.”
Downtown Sacramento reached 116 degrees Fahrenheit Tuesday, an all-time high in records going back to 1849, beating the old mark of 114 set in 1925, and Stockton tied its all-time high at 115. Across California and the US West “a slew of records were set yesterday,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.
Wednesday afternoon the temperature at Sacramento Executive Airport had risen to 99 degrees and was set to peak at 109 later in the day. It had reached 104 degrees in Stockton to the south, and was expected to rise another four degrees later. It was 102 in Modesto, with a high forecast of 106, while in Fresno it was 105 on its way to 110 later.
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As power demand surged Tuesday evening, the state issued emergency alerts via mobile phone in several counties asking for immediate power conservation. Demand immediately plunged in response, according to grid data. Emergency measures were finally lifted at about 9 p.m. local time.
All-time highs are unusual. Many temperature records are simply for a specific date, so reaching a new record marks an extreme. Santa Rosa, Napa, Livermore, Redwood City, San Jose and King City, all in Northern California, set or tied their hottest temperatures ever on Tuesday, according to the weather service.
The prospect of outages underscores how grids have become vulnerable in the face of extreme weather as they transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. California has aggressively closed natural-gas power plants in recent years, leaving the state increasingly dependent on solar farms that go dark late in the day just as electricity demand peaks. At the same time, the state is enduring the Southwest’s worst drought in 1,200 years, sapping hydropower production.
Clouds and moisture filtering in across the West from Hurricane Kay, now off Mexico’s Baja California coast, will help cool things down, Rowe said. In addition, a large high pressure system that has been allowing the heat to build across the West will start to break down by the weekend, Oravec said.
By Sunday, many places across California and the West could be as much as 20 degrees cooler than they are now.
(Updates with level-2 warning, weather)
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