by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe
California’s planned power outages are the new normal
Over the weekend, California utility company Pacific, Gas and Electric shut off power in 12 counties as a countermeasure to ‘wind spikes and fears of wildfires.
This is a rather new “normal” in California. As a native of California, this never happened. The only time power went out was due to powerful winter storms knocking down power lines.
Now, it’s a regular occurrence – not the lines going down, but the power being deliberately shut off. A few years ago we called these “rolling blackouts” when the utility companies didn’t have the available power during summer heat to keep everyone’s air conditioning on. People died.
It’s an actual thing… PG&E calls them “Rotating outages.”
And, they tell us…
“Outages are preventable, if we all conserve.”
“Heatwaves may strain the grid. To reduce the impact, CAISO may enact rotating outages.”
“When demand for electricity is higher than supply, such as during a heat wave, Californians might be asked to use less energy. If enough people conserve electricity at once, rotating outages can be cancelled or postponed by an hour or more.”
