California Energy Officials warned of potential power outages during the summer in anticipation of hot and dry conditions, adding to pandemic induced the supply chain disruptions and regulatory issues that create challenges for energy reliability.
The California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission, and the California Independent System Operator manage the state's energy grid. Officials say that the electric system may find itself short of 1,700 megawatts of needed capacity to power what the California Energy Commission estimates to power 1.3 million homes.
The shortfall may be further exacerbated by extreme weather and wildfires, reaching a deficit of up to 5,000 megawatts, according to state officials.
"If you overlay that with also the potential risk of fires that happen at the same time then you get into those more extraordinary extreme events that there is if all those things were to occur. There is real potential for potential outages and we have to be prepared for that," Mark Rothleder, senior vice president of California ISO said.
The United States experienced record-breaking power outages in 2020, according to an Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis. On average, U.S. electricity customers experienced nearly 20 more minutes of power interruptions in 2020, the most ever recorded since the agency began collecting reliability data in 2013.
According to the EIA, different factors cause power interruptions, including weather, vegetation patterns, and utility practices. Utilities can report interruption duration values with major events, including snowstorms, wildfires, and hurricanes, without major events, or both.
California’s severe drought conditions may lead to reductions in generation from hydroelectric power plants across the state. Earlier this year, a study published by nature climate change found that California’s current megadrought is the worst in at least 1,200 years and that the human-caused climate crisis has made it 72 percent worse.
Leaders say they are procuring more energy, increasing battery storage, and installing new generators to prepare for the outages. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency proclamation to expedite clean energy projects and relieve demand on the electrical grid during extreme weather events as climate change fuels wildfires throughout the west coast.
Under Newsom’s California Comeback Plan, the state will move away from natural gasses and toward a 100 percent clean electricity system by 2045, or sooner.
