California’s power grid operator said it did not ask consumers to conserve power on Friday despite declaring an energy emergency late Thursday as a heat wave lingered.
The California Independent System Operator (ISO), which operates the grid that serves more than 32 million consumers representing about 80% of the state’s power load, has said it has enough resources available to meet demand.
With homes and businesses cranking up their air conditioners to beat the heat on Thursday, the ISO declared an emergency alert for about an hour “due to heat conditions and higher than anticipated demand” at around 7:30 p.m. local time. The setting sun had reduced the amount of solar power available.
California residents have worried about the effect of extreme weather on the power grid since a brutal heat wave in August 2020 forced the ISO to impose a couple of days of rotating blackouts on around 800,000 homes and businesses.
Meteorologists at AccuWeather forecast that high temperatures in Los Angeles would reach the low 90s every day from Friday through Tuesday. That’s compared to with a normal high of 82 degrees for this time of year.
The ISO said it was able to end Thursday’s emergency after securing additional resources, but did not say where those resources came from. Its website, though, said imports from neighboring states increased around that time.
The ISO forecast demand would rise from 42,266 megawatts (MW) on Thursday to 43,512 MW on Friday. Still, that is well below the grid’s all-time high of 52,061 MW on Sept. 6, 2022.
Meanwhile, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on Friday said it is prepared to meet increased electricity demand in California this summer with new energy supply.
The company said it is bringing online new resources like battery energy storage, including an additional 700 megawatts (MW) more than it had last summer.
Soaring demand in California boosted some next-day power and natural gas prices in the U.S. West to their highest in three months, including at the Mid Columbia Hub in the Pacific Northwest, where much of California’s electric imports come from.
Gas is important in California since much of the power generated in the state comes from gas-fired plants.
In 2022, about 49% of the power generated in the ISO came from gas-fired plants, with most of the rest coming from solar (21%), nuclear (10%), wind (10%) and hydro (9%).
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Barbara Lewis)
