Black outs in California suspended temporarily

Rolling blackouts were suspended this evening in Northern California because the California Independent System Operator obtained 1,300 Mw of additional power for the peak period of 5 to 6 p.m.

The ISO is operating the state�s grid on an �hour-by-hour basis�, says Jim Detmers, managing director of operations of the ISO.

�We are still somewhat at a risk,� he says. �We hope that these megawatts will become commitments for later hours.�

Detmers says negotiations were ongoing to extend the 1-hour contract into the night to avoid further blackouts.

The extra resources came from a utility in Canada and from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, a publicly owned utility. He would not say why the extra power was suddenly available at this time.

�The ISO and the Department of Water Resources are canvassing all suppliers inside and outside of California to find megawatts,� he says. �We want to have sufficient resources to avoid these situations in the future.�

Meanwhile, the grid operators' job will be an arduous one for the morning of Jan. 18 because only 14,000 Mw are scheduled at this time for the ISO to dispatch, Detmers says.That means the ISO will have to find about 18,000 Mw in the real time market, which is more costly. The search for megawatts has become more challenging by the day because of the mounting financial constraints facing the utilities. The utilities must ultimately pay the ISO for the power it obtains to serve customers. And those payments to the ISO are in jeopardy as the utilities face bankruptcy.

Detmers says the ISO is trying to arrange to get power committed for one week or even one month at a time. The Water Resources Department was authorized by the state to buy power on longer terms and resell it to the ISO, he says.