Rolling Blackouts Averted Tuesday Amid Heat Wave, Flex Alert Called For Today

With electricity demand reaching record levels due to a drawn-out heat wave, Pasadena, the Southland and the state avoided rolling power blackouts Tuesday as utility managers called for maximum conservation efforts by residents.

Wednesday is predicted to see the state grid’s capacity sitting on a knife edge with demand and blackouts remain a possibility.

The California Independent System Operator issued a statewide flex alert for Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Consumer and commercial demand response, including Flex Alerts, has been helping to extend tight resources over the past week, with a load reduction of around 1,000 MW for each of the past several days.

During the Flex Alerts, residents are urged to take the following power-saving steps:

• setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher;

• avoiding using major appliances;

• turning off unnecessary lights; and

• avoid charging electric vehicles.

Residents were also advised to pre-cool their homes as much as possible and close blinds and drapes to keep interiors cool.

On Tuesday morning, Cal-ISO declared an Energy Emergency Alert 1 for the same hours, warning utilities that all electricity resources are expected to be fully committed and some shortages are possible. By early afternoon, Cal- ISO moved to Energy Emergency Alert 2, requesting all available emergency supplies to be made available to meet the demand.

And just before 6 p.m., the state moved into Energy Emergency Alert 3, calling for maximum conservation efforts while warning that blackouts could be imminent absent reduced demand.

To drive home the demand, alerts were sent to cellphones across the state urging people to “conserve energy now to protect public health and safety” and warning that “power interruptions may occur unless you take action.”

“As the state faces the hottest day in this prolonged, record-breaking heat wave, grid conditions are expected to worsen,” according to the power-grid manager. “If needed, ISO could order utilities to begin rotating power outages to maintain stability of the electric grid. If that occurs, consumers should expect communications — either phone, text or email — from their utilities notifying them of outage areas and likely durations.”

Cal-ISO ended Energy Emergency Alert 3 at 8 p.m., declaring that “consumer conservation played a big part in protecting electric grid reliability.”

If energy reserves were exhausted, Cal-ISO would have instructed utilities to manage rolling blackouts. Utilities make the determination of how best to spread and rotate the outages across their service territory, with the goal of keeping them as short as possible.

Cal-ISO officials said calls for conservation have paid off so far during the heat wave, with no power interruptions occurring.

By late Tuesday afternoon, electricity demand reached 52,061 megawatts, breaking the record of 50,270 MW set in 2006, according to Cal-ISO. Wednesday’s load is forecast at 49,977 MW.