California affected by blackouts for second day

By the OGJ Online Staff

HOUSTON, Mar. 20�For the second day in a row, the California Independent System Operator Tuesday called for rolling blackouts.

The ISO requested the state's utilities to curtail 500 Mw affecting northern and southern parts of the state. The grid operator said more than 12,000 Mw are still off line due to planned and unplanned outages. In addition, more than half the state's qualifying facilities�small generators such as wind units and cogenerators�are not operating because of financial concerns, low wind, or the inability to pay for natural gas to run the plants.

The grid operator is projecting a peak load of 29,952 Mw Tuesday and called for conservation to reduce demand. Voluntary load reduction programs were activated in the morning.

Monday, the grid operator called for rolling blackouts at 11:45 a.m., which also affected all parts of the state and lasted until 7 p.m.

Overall, electrical service was temporarily interrupted for more than 400,000 Southern California Edison Co. customers in portions of communities across its service area for up to 1 hour. Customers of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. were affected as well.

As of 4:30 p.m. Monday San Diego Gas & Electric said electric service to virtually all its customers had been restored.

The rotating outages lasted about 60-90 minutes each and, at the Monday peak shortly after 12:30 p.m., affected approximately 80,000 of the more than 1.2 million electric customers served by SDG&E.

The company's share of the statewide electric curtailment ranged between 59-74 Mw of power, less than 3% of SDG&E's current electric demand.