California ISO (Independent System Administrator) declared another Flex Alert and a Stage 3 emergency on Wednesday. A Stage 3 emergency means that utilities such as PG&E are required to perform rotating failures to reduce electrical charge on the network, to avoid large, unplanned stoppages.
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PG&E is not able to give customers advanced warning, it says, but they have set up a tool that allows you to see how likely you are to lose power.
First, use the PG & E card to find your address:
Open the map in a new window by clicking here.
Then you get an “Outage Block” number and a “Sub Outage Block” letter. Compare that letter and number combination with the second column in the diagram below. This will tell you in which round of shutoffs your house was recorded.
For example, if your unblocking block is 1 and your sub-blocking block is M, then your number is 1M, placing you in the first round of outages starting at 4pm
If your number is 6A, you’re in the fifth round of outages, which would not occur until 8 o’clock, if at all.
PG&E block 50 will not lose power during rolling blackouts.
PG&E plans to turn off power to customers in the first block, and then only turn off extra power when needed as the night goes on.
The outages are estimated two to three hours after they begin, according to PG&E.
Govin Newsom addressed the rolling blackouts in a press conference on Monday.
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“Let me make this crystal clear: We failed to predict and plan for these deficits and that is not acceptable,” the governor said.
Since Friday, the governor said the state has taken the following actions to reduce energy consumption:
- Newsom signed an “emergency proclamation to free up energy capacity” and therefore reduced the need for rolling blackouts. Through the move, “energy users and utilities will be able to use backup energy sources to reduce grid pressure during peak times during power outages.”
- Large energy users shift to backup power between peak hours from 3 pm to 10 pm
- Utilities will use the power they have stored for PSPS
- Work with ports to reduce net consumption when ships are in port
- Work with large consumers to reduce energy consumption
“Even with all this, we’ll probably fall short,” Newsom said. “I’m not happy with what happened. I’m taking a back seat for anyone.”
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