By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, July 3 -- California narrowly averted rolling blackouts Monday, but the same heat wave caused Nevada Power Co. in Las Vegas to curtail power to firm customers in a series of rotating outages.
A spokesman for Nevada Power said large resorts and commercial and industrial customers shed about 50 Mw, avoiding further outages. About 10,000 customers on nonemergency circuits were affected by the blackouts.
Demand peaked at a record 4,395 Mw Monday, up from the previous peak of 4,325 Mw set Aug. 1,2000. Nevada Power said the outages occurred after nonfirm suppliers in the West elected not to ship power to the utility. Another 350 Mw that was out of service.
Spokesman Paul Heagen said long-term contracts for firm power went into effect and those contracts prevented further power shortages. Since 1994, Nevada's peak demand has risen to nearly 4,400 Mw from 2,851 Mw.
With the heat wave continuing Tuesday, the California Independent System Operator is projecting demand will peak at 41,471 Mw, higher than earlier forecasts of 39,231 Mw. The ISO declared a Stage 2 emergency Monday after demand hit 40,523 Mw but later canceled the alert. The emergency was declared after reserves fell below 5%.
The ISO said the state's appetite for power Monday was about 2,000 Mw above forecast. With temperatures exceeding expectations, air conditioners kicked into service driving up demand.
Extremely hot weather across much of the southwestern US severely limited the amount of electricity California could import from neighboring states Monday. Outages at both 790 Mw units at the Mohave coal-fired plant in Nevada operated and partly owned by Edison International unit Southern California Edison Co., Rosemead, Calif., contributed to the near shortfall.
