Bloomberg News reports that the grid operator of California has warned of the probability of power shortages that might lead to blackouts Wednesday. This warning comes amidst mounting heat waves and a year-long drought that is historic and has supplies related to drained hydropower.
The officials have asked the residents to preserve power Wednesday between 4 pm and 9 pm local time, as the temperatures are soaring beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degree Celsius. The California Independent System Operator, which is running the grid, has issued a warning on its website of possible power outages during this time.
This is California’s biggest grid test since the 2020 summer when the rolling outages gobbled up portions of the state. It has come as the Ukraine-Russia war has triggered an energy crunch in Europe coupled with the record temperatures driven by the climate change tax grids across the world.
Demand for Power to Escalate
A dry spell, the worst in the last 1,200 years, is engulfing about an inch of California with the reservoirs noticeably low, drought in summer, and rivers drying up. This, in turn, has implications that are quite significant for the state, which has been generating 10% of its electricity from dams using hydroelectricity and has, in recent years, shut down the natural gas power plants aggressively.
Bloomberg News also reports that the electricity demand of California is slated to build up over the coming week and around the top 48 gigawatts on Monday and Tuesday. This would be the highest demand since 2017 on the grid, as per Caiso, who is a grid operator. Officials are predicting a shortage of the contracted reserves and excess supplies kept on hand as a backup so that blackouts can be prevented during instances like Wednesday night when it will be the tightest hours.
The owners of the power plants and the transmission lines have been requested to restrict maintenance during the heat wave, as consumers are being asked to preserve energy, enabling them to keep the grid stable. It is anticipated that the demand will be more than 45.5 gigawatts, as initially projected by the officials during the peak of summer, and this figure is still short of 50.5 gigawatts, a record for 2006. One gigawatt can provide power to almost 750,000 homes in California.
