The following is a contributed article by Alex Gilbert, Project Manager at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, and Morgan Bazilian, Director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines and Professor of Public Policy.
Brought a heavy heat wave high electrical prices en rolling electricity emissions to California last week, with so many two million customers with a loss of power. Already, some are trying to politicize the blackouts, blaming California’s sustainable and aggressive energy transition. However, the situation is considerably more complex then this simplistic narrative.
Although the reliability of the services in the United States is generally high, weather events often cause eruptions and interruptions. Confronted with a particularly hard hot wave in the western US, California’s electric grill wrestles with how to maintain service in a time of very high use of air conditioning.
Electricity sources, the state regulatory structure, institutional responses and market design are all factors. Kneelingfunny reactions and well-prepared policy forecasts are an inadequate response to identify the causes of the violations and develop solutions.
The recent misery of California started near the end of last week, because harsh region-wide heat caused the network system to issue emergency alert and request for retention warning of potential capacity risks. On Friday, as evening arrived, solar generation began to fall as expected, requires other resources to increase to maintain reserve margins. Manage periods in this time, the well-known ‘duck curve, ‘is normally predictable and therefore immediate. However, with warm temperatures continuing into the evening, the need for air conditioning remained high.
Nei in of course gas unit is offline, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) provided a Stage 3 electrical emergency, and targeted utilities, particularly PG&E, to begin load-shedding. By implementing rolling blackouts that affected 200,000-250,000 customers per hour, the overall reliability of the net was maintained.
On Saturday, continuous heat and extra-generation outages lead again implementation of short blackouts. With the heat wave continue, additional measures and outages could occur this week.
De rector cause of the problems in California is exceptionally high demand for electricity as a result of a region-wide heatwave. The entire West Coast is experiencing at the moment very high temperatures, with many places reaching above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Although it has yet to be confirmed, Death Valley measures a temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the warmest recorded temperatures in human history.
The need for air conditioning means that loads in California near peaks were last introduced during a heat wave of 2006. Such conditions not only penalize the demand side, they can also stress generators, reducing plant efficiency and output. Besibbe, tthe combination of extreme heat and persistent wildfires has led to some of California’s worst ozone in a decade.
In combination with this high demand, the proximate cause of the blackouts were generator outages. On Friday at 500 MW natural gas unit is sent offline while another 750 MW gas unit unexpectedly remained out of use. On Saturday, it was the loss of a 470 MW gas unit combined with a 1,000 MW loss of wind power. Furthermore, the regional character of the heatwave limits the network’s ability to increase imports from outside the state. One engineer noticed that CAISO’s reserve margins were relatively high during the rolling blackouts, suggested that CAISO be careful in case of a generator or transmission line outage.
However, over there are important and longing structural causes leading to this operational situation. Source data standards for the US require that the risk of a blackout be maintained for up to 1-in-10 years. In his assessment of the reliability of this summer, NERC evaluated California met its margin requirements, but noted risks related to low hydro and limited imports in case of very high demand. Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission approved it 3.3 purchase of gigawatt to ensure short-term resource adequacy, although new storage and other measures were not yet available this year.
UUnlike other electricity markets, California does not have key features to ensure resource adequacy, such as capacity markets or well-developed demand response programs. Energy stakeholders in the state have debated for years on how to maintain resource adequacy in light of the energy transition, with the state decided only this summer decisions to centralize with utilities. Furthermore, while CAISO implemented rolling black outs, Los Angeles and Sacramento, with their own network operators and system acquisition, occur do that.
iIt is important to note that rolling blackouts are intentional risk response to stressed grid conditions. Short service outages for a few customers (relative speaking) can ensure a wider grid outage does not occur. The effects of an uncontrolled blackout during a heat wave can be fatal, potentially taking days to restore service.
As an example, the massive blackout of 2003 on the East Coast cut power to more than 50 million people and cost tens of billions of economic damage.
California has gone almost 20 years without capacity shortages. In 2011, Texas allowed rolling blackouts during severe winter weather in February and only occurred in August in severe summer weather. Beyond insufficient supply, weather events just this month caused major outages in Iowa, Texas, the East Coast, and other places.
Perfect reliability is never guaranteed and probably expensive. After all, reliability of electrical system and resilience is a compromise between performance and cost.
Nevertheless, context is important. These are supply-induced outages prevent during a global pandemic, which increases potential risks to health and the economy of an uncontrolled waste. Meanwhile PG&E continues to embrace one of the most challenging controversies for electrical reliability in the land: Shutoffs for public safety due to fires. The company just plain arose from bankruptcy in connection with the damage, after a settlement of several billion.
Beyond wildfires, these outages appear to be the first supply-driven since the Enron scandal in 2001. During that incident, rampant market manipulation, partly due to poor market design, led to months of rolling blackouts. Eventually, customers settled in California, because utilities signed expensive long-term contracts in price manipulation, an important factor in why California has some of the highest electric rates in the nation.
Going forward, an in-depth review of the proximal and structural causes of California’s problems is needed to chart a new path forward. As extreme weather events become more frequent due to climate change, en the immunization imperatives drive the energy transition, existing and creative solutions are needed to guarantee blackouts remain rarely and briefly.
Humility and patience in diagnosing the challenges of the grid are necessary to navigate a new electric grid.
Correction: Texas prevented no blackouts in August 2011. An earlier version had the event wrong.
