Dodging Blackouts, California Faces New Questions on Its Power Supply

With temperatures soaring throughout the West, CAISO faced rising prices in the regional market that it operates to buy and sell energy. As electricity demand kept increasing, so did prices, some to almost $2,000 per megawatt-hour, compared with normal prices of less than $100.

“Where the risk comes is if we can’t get our prices high enough compared to the rest of the West to get any imports,” said Carrie Bentley, the co-founder and chief executive of Gridwell Consulting, which focuses on energy markets in the West. “Prices in the desert Southwest were a little higher, so we were competing with them. There just wasn’t enough supply.”

Coping With a Crisis

As Sept. 6 arrived, Elliot Mainzer, CAISO’s chief executive, knew he was facing one of his organization’s toughest days.

Its meteorologists, along with those at the National Weather Service, were forecasting record heat. With overnight lows in the 80s in much of the state, it did not take long for temperatures to surge back into the 100s, with Sacramento setting a record high of 116 degrees.

Just before Mr. Mainzer and a hundred other people from utilities, smaller grid operators and emergency services got on a 9 a.m. call with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, CAISO’s forecasters were projecting the highest demand the system had ever seen, 51,276 megawatts. The peak, set 16 years earlier, was 50,270.

“We were seeing that there were going to be some significant shortfalls,” Mr. Mainzer said. “It’s not just the demand and the heat, but wildfires, smoke and cloud cover were affecting the system.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/business/energy-environment/california-energy-grid-heat.html