The worst is yet to come.
With temperatures rising, an epic heat wave continued to put major pressure on California’s beleaguered electricity grid Friday, with managers of the state’s power grid warning that energy demands would peak early next week.
A Flex Alert was in effect for Friday from 4 to 9 p.m., marking the third straight day that the Independent System Operator was calling on Californians to turn up their thermostats to 78 degrees and postpone using heavy appliances.
Elliot Mainzer, the chief executive of the ISO, said the state avoided blackouts Thursday even though power consumption peaked at 47,357 megawatts — the highest since 2017. “Yesterday was a challenge for everyone,” he said in a video briefing.
A Flex Alert was called for Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m., the fourth straight day in which Californians were being asked to conserve.
Triple-digit temperatures were continuing to roast much of the West. The high temperature in parts of the Sacramento Valley was expected to hit 105 degrees Friday and could hit 115 degrees Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
“The hottest weather in this extended heat wave is still ahead of us,” Mainzer said. “Electricity conservation is going to be essential in keep the power flowing to California without interruption.”
The grid operator said power demands are expected to peak at 49,000 megawatts sometime Tuesday.
That would still be short of the all-time record of 50,270 consumed July 24, 2006. But California’s power portfolio has altered considerably since then — the state is far more dependent on solar power and other renewable sources, and when the sun goes down the grid becomes vulnerable to blackouts.
The state experienced two nights of rolling blackouts in August 2020 and barely avoided another round of blackouts in July 2021. Mindful of the risk of more power outages, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week persuaded the Legislature to loan up to $1.4 billion to PG&E Corp. postpone the scheduled 2025 shutdown of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. Diablo Canyon generates about 9% of the state’s electricity.
©2022 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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And this is the Democrat Party ruled State of California which mandates all cars sold after 2035 will be electric vehicles.
Where are they going to get the electricity to charge a billion electrical vehicles?
If you live in California you better buy a manually operated fan and a bicycle.
That’s the question I’ve been asking since Tesla opened the factory down the street to start building EVs.
Ever since Gov Moonbeam Brown stopped all plans for future dams in California, we’ve had an escalating problem with having enough water and enough electricity to power the grid for the rapidly growing population. And during his ill-gotten second eight year term, he doubled down on stupid and did nothing to reverse that mistake to the point he was actually considering taking down the Hetch-Hetchy dam which is the biggest supplier of water and electricity for the SF Bay Area.
And Gov Sunstroke Newsom..? No, don’t get me started on him.
Despite the numbers of people leaving, new condos are being put up in every empty lot they can find because Newsom effectively banned the building of single family homes.
And with the growing population of cities like Fremont, the questions continue: Where are we going to get the electricity to not overwhelm the grid? The water? How will they keep up with the growing numbers of cars commuting daily on the roads ten years obsolete when they’re built?
I don’t ever hear any answers about that.
AND I have not one lick of sympathy for anyone left IN CA…. NOT ONE>
It is only fitting that the California State now run by the people and the party of leisure and lazy, endure blackouts on the day that celebrates labor,,, a commodity the governing Democrat people eschew like the over-chewed bubble gum spit out on the pavement littered with drug needles and used adult diapers. When California voters entrusted the power of the State to power-manipulating Democrat party politicians, why would not the power that heats and cools their homes and drives their vehicles not expected to be wasted and dissipated just like the tax money they turn the taxpayer upside down to drain them of their last coins, like they now drain them of their last bit of electricity? Newsom’s idea of a black out is when the street pavements are empty and painted with BLM Signs.
This is what the dumb idiot liberals voted for and look at what they have gotten in communist California, a total loss of freedom. Liberals in everyday life are stupid, liberals cannot be reasoned with. It is sad that liberal human beings would be shunned / thrown off the donkey farm by the Jackasses on the donkey farm, as the Jackasses have more common sense than liberal human beings. Thus, liberal human beings are less than animals / donkeys!!!!!!!
GOOD. LET them reap the whirlwind of their OWN choices.
Soon there will be a mandate that all households purchase hand cranked mini-generators for their hand held devices like cel-phones, iPads, pagers, etc. to alleviate the strain on the grid in order to supply more important things like heat and light, necessities for daily living to include refrigeration for food, methods to cook it, things taken for granted because they have always been there!
“… methods to cook it…”
Yeah, especially as California is facing only new EVs to be sold in thirteen years, and a new mandate that all gas stoves and ovens must be replaced with electric.
Again, where are the plans to reinforce the grid, which is overwhelmed all too often today? And don’t say solar and wind because they are ineffective for the danger they pose to wildlife, not to mention their construction and what to do with them after they need replacing is still not been resolved.
For being so-called green technology, the,y as well as EVs, are anything but.
A whole lot of pipe dreams without a clue on how to make them work.
Maybe that will help with the obsesity epidemic…