Construction Set To Begin On Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority Undergrounding Project
September 19, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 19, 2021
Construction is set to begin this week on the first electrical underground project in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said on Sept. 17.
Undergrounding of equipment in and around the Wilfred “Bomba” Allick Port and Transshipment Center at Krause Lagoon is a $2.5 million federally funded project with financial resources provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. J. Benton Construction Inc. is the contractor on the project, which aims to provide critical facilities with electrical equipment that is less vulnerable to hurricanes and windstorms. The work entails trenching and conduit installation.
“The undergrounding of facilities in critical areas is key during storm restoration and other emergencies,” said Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority Interim Executive Director Noel Hodge said the Authority is excited about beginning construction on this very important mitigation project on St. Croix. Interim Executive Director Noel Hodge. “The ports are critical to the movement of materials and supplies into the territory after a disaster and providing facilities that can lead to more efficient power restoration, bodes well for the future.”
Hodge noted that in April, Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority broke ground on this and two similar underground electrical projects, in Golden Grove and Midland, “and we are now set to proceed with the start of construction on Tuesday.”
As with similar electrical undergrounding across the territory, the Container Port project will replace existing overhead electrical lines and equipment with underground equipment. “This lessens damage from future hurricanes and windstorms and also ensures more efficient service restoration in the aftermath of a natural disaster,” Hodge said.
Similar electrical undergrounding projects are slated for St. Thomas and St. John as part of a larger strategic transformation of the territory’s electrical and water utility.
LIPA, PSEG Long Island reach agreement on contract reforms in response to tropical storm failures
June 30, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 30, 2021
The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) on June 28 announced that it has reached an agreement with PSEG Long Island on a set of contract reforms that will provide LIPA and the New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) with greater oversight authority and resolve pending litigation related to PSEG Long Island’s failures to meet contract standards during Tropical Storm Isaias.
LIPA owns the Long Island electric grid and contracts with PSEG Long Island, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated, to operate the grid on a day-to-day basis.
Under the settlement, PSEG Long Island will forfeit $30 million for Tropical Storm Isaias-related failures.
Specifically, the agreement calls for:
- $6.6 million to reimburse customers without power for more than 72 hours for food and medicine spoilage;
- $19.5 million in payments and credits to LIPA towards the cost of upgrading the information technology and communication systems that failed during the storm; and
- $3.9 million in contributions to Long Island-based charities
On the afternoon of Tropical Storm Isaias, all of PSEG Long Island’s restoration and communications systems failed, leaving over 500,000 customers unable to communicate with their electric utility and hampering restoration efforts.
Over one million customer calls received busy signals, 300,000 text messages bounced back, and web services and mobile phone applications failed. Customers were unable to report critical emergencies, and those that could get through received inaccurate restoration times, LIPA said.
Hurricane Isaias made landfall at around 11:10 pm EDT on August 3, 2020, near Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., as a category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. It then weakened to a tropical storm while proceeding north-northeastward inland along the Eastern Seaboard, reaching near Albany, N.Y., by 5:00 p,m. EDT on August 4.
Investigations by LIPA and DPS ordered by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo determined that PSEG Long Island management was aware that critical information technology systems were not working before the storm, had inadequate business continuity plans, and had not maintained or rigorously stress tested systems.
The investigations led to the adoption by PSEG Long Island of 85 specific recommendations by the LIPA Board to correct information technology, management, and emergency management deficiencies, which are all in addition to the penalties and contract reforms announced on June 28.
Agreement creates stronger protections for customers
The agreement will also create stronger protections for customers, LIPA noted.
The President and Chief Operating Officer of PSEG Long Island will have full and final operational decision-making authority and the local executive team will be strengthened with new positions in information technology, cybersecurity, emergency response, business services, and human resources.
“To avoid the lack of accountability for local operations that was evident in the company’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias, all Long Island employees will report to managers on Long Island. Additionally, the compensation for all PSEG Long Island employees will be linked to the performance of Long Island operations,” LIPA said.
There will also be a strengthening of long-term planning, budget development, and cost management. New standards will require greater long-term planning, transparency, and accountability for delivering projects and services on time and within budget that meet the needs and deliver value for customers.
In addition, the reformed management contract increases the amount of PSEG Long Island’s annual compensation at risk from $10 million to $40 million, including automatic reductions for failures to meet minimum emergency response, customer satisfaction, and reliability standards and a new DPS investigative process to reduce compensation for failures to provide safe, adequate, and reliable service to customers.
PSEG Long Island will be subject to detailed performance requirements set annually by the LIPA board and DPS to ensure the company meets industry best practices across all the services provided to LIPA and its customers.
The agreement also calls for stronger oversight protections for LIPA and DPS.
The agreement requires timely, affirmative disclosure to LIPA and DPS of issues, such as those that occurred before and during Tropical Storm Isaias, that significantly impair PSEG Long Island’s ability to provide reliable service, emergency response, cybersecurity, financial impairment, noncompliance with laws, or circumstances that may endanger public health, safety, and welfare.
LIPA said new provisions will ensure that PSEG Long Island’s decisions to hire affiliates to perform services, including information technology services, at customer expense will deliver better quality and lower cost than competing vendors.
The agreement-in-principal, when finalized, will be presented to the LIPA Board of Trustees for their consideration.
Public power utilities play key role in Pacific Northwest’s response to historic heat wave
June 30, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 30, 2021
Public power utilities and their customers have played a key role in helping to maintain a reliable supply of power in the face of a historic heat wave that gripped the region in recent days and in turn placed power demand pressure on regional grids.
Several major cities in the Pacific Northwest have experienced temperatures over 100 degrees, shattering records for several days in a row.
Seattle City Light
One of those cities is Seattle, Washington, where public power utility Seattle City Light on June 28 noted that it was carefully monitoring external conditions and its systems to maintain reliable power to customers in Seattle and our surrounding communities. “We have brought in extra crews to respond to unplanned outages and we have postponed planned outages at least through Tuesday, June 29 to minimize the impact on customers,” Seattle City Light said in a post on its website.
Seattle City Light noted that it was participating in daily calls with the Northwest Power Pool (NWPP), which manages resource adequacy across the region. While utilities in the Northwest typically see their highest demand in the winter, not the summer, the NWPP continues to report adequate resources to meet the demands of this sustained heat wave, Seattle City Light said on June 28. “The fact that we are a hydropower region, not overly dependent on intermittent resources like solar and wind, is very helpful in this situation,” the utility noted.
At the peak on Sunday, June 27, Seattle City Light had about 1,700 customer meters without power at one time. “We expect we could see similar outages with the heat continuing through today and we are prepared to respond as quickly as is safely possible,” it said on June 28.
Snohomish County PUD
As with other public power utilities responding to the heat wave, Washington State’s Snohomish County PUD called on customers to do their part in helping to keep power demand down by making small changes to conserve energy like closing blinds and using small appliances in their kitchens.
In a June 25 tweet, Washington State’s Snohomish County PUD noted that “Some have asked if our power supply is at risk due to this heat. The short answer is no. We expect that energy demand on June 28 will be its highest ever in June. Fortunately, above-average water supply and snowpack this spring have us well-positioned going into summer. But when demand for power is high, we sometimes have to buy power on the market, & prices are high right now! Help us keep costs and rates low by conserving energy between noon and 10 p.m. Wash dishes, run laundry & take showers in the morning or late at night.”
BPA
As record-breaking heat bore down on the Pacific Northwest this past weekend, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) detailed several steps to position the federal power and transmission system to serve its customers during the weather event.
On the Power Services side of BPA, BPA said these factors were helping:
- The Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear plant owned by Energy Northwest that produces power marketed by BPA, recently returned online from a spring refueling outage, adding over 1,100 megawatts of generation in the Northwest and the West;
- Programmed fish spill on the lower Columbia and Snake rivers transitioned from spring to summer operations, increasing the federal hydropower generation from those facilities;
- The Bureau of Reclamation has the Grand Coulee reservoir well positioned to meet its refill target in early July, freeing up the remaining water flow to pass through the system for both power and non-power purposes.
BPA said that despite the lower-than-average water year, there is plenty of water behind Grand Coulee Dam and some snowpack left in the Canadian Rockies. Unlike 2015 and 2001, years with a similar volume of water, the shape of this year’s runoff has been slower with snow gradually melting above Grand Coulee, it noted.
On the transmission side, BPA said it was taking measures to ensure the safe and reliable flow of electricity over the weekend of June 26-27. BPA owns and operates more than 15,000 circuit miles of transmission lines across the Northwest and small amounts in Nevada, Utah and California.
Last Thursday, BPA restricted planned maintenance on its transmission grid from 6 a.m. Monday, June 28 through Tuesday, June 29 at 10 p.m., so the federal agency would be able to leverage the system to its greatest use when load was expected to increase with the start of the workweek.
“Having all of our lines available will help relieve congestion on the system,” said BPA Vice President of Transmission Operations Michelle Cathcart. “With these unprecedented temperatures, we want to ensure electricity can move freely and reliably meet customer demands.”
On June 29, BPA said in a tweet that it expected energy use in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State to peak between 5 and 7 p.m. “Please do what you can to reduce electricity use today. Thanks for helping us get through the heat of the day yesterday,” BPA said in the tweet.
City of Richland, Wash.
BPA transmits electricity to Richland Energy Services (RES) and other Tri-Cities utilities through a transmission system designed to meet peak and above-peak demand for power throughout the region.
BPA informed the City of Richland, Wash., that the week’s extreme heat was straining the regional electric energy transmission system. If total load approaches maximum system capacity, BPA will require RES to shift or shed load on its distribution system, the city noted on June 28.
RES “will do everything it can to manage load by shifting customer loads when possible. This is done behind the scenes and transfers electrical connections between distribution lines with little to no impact on citizens,” the city said in a news release.
Shedding load occurs when the demand for electricity approaches supply and BPA is forced to reduce power demand by temporarily removing some customers. This would require RES to disconnect power to some customers and result in short-term, rolling power outages, the city noted.
If shedding load is required by BPA, the city said it would focus on maintaining essential businesses and services. At that time customers will likely see some power outages from a half hour up to four hours. REs intends to minimize the duration of these outages by rotating them through the city, Richland said on June 28.
BPA’s notification to utilities to shed load can occur quickly, so it is unlikely that customers will be notified before an outage is implemented, the city noted.
Benton PUD
Meanwhile, Benton PUD on June 29 said in a tweet that it had not been asked, nor was it planning, to shed load.
“We are asking customers to work together to conserve energy. Collectively as a community, we can make a difference. This will help in preparing in the event one of BPA’s major lines or critical equipment fails,” it said.
Benton PUD serves over 50,000 customers in Kennewick, Finley, Benton City, Prosser, and outlying areas in Washington State.
Heat wave extends to Canada, pressuring grid
In Canada, the province of Alberta’s power grid came under pressure in the wake of extreme heat.
In response to the ongoing heat wave across the province in Western Canada, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) on June 29 asked Albertans to help conserve energy to ensure adequate supply and reduce the possibility of power outages.
“Yesterday we saw an unprecedented jump in energy use, reaching 11,512 MW, beating our previous summer peak demand record of 11,169 MW,” says Dennis Frehlich, Vice President, Grid Reliability, at AESO. “We’re on track to break that record for a second day in a row and so we’re asking Albertans to play their part to conserve energy.”
Snohomish County PUD projects to maintain high reliability levels, meet growing demand
June 23, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 23, 2021
Snohomish County PUD crews this summer will be making electric system improvements and completing preventative maintenance projects in an effort to ensure the Washington State PUD maintains high levels of reliability through the storm season and meets growing demand, it said on June 15.
The PUD has work scheduled on many of its substations, including standard maintenance, equipment replacement and automation upgrades. PUD crews will install a new transformer at its Paine Field Substation, which serves both industrial and residential customers.
Construction on the new Twin City Substation in Stanwood, Washington, is scheduled to be substantially complete this summer. The new substation will replace the North Stanwood Substation and will increase reliability to Stanwood and Camano Island. In July, PUD crews will also rebuild overhead circuits and install underground circuits on a highway near the new substation.
In the Woods Creek area outside Monroe, Washington, the PUD will replace more than 50 distribution poles and install transmission lines to connect the circuits from the PUD’s Woods Creek and Lake Chaplain substations. The work will improve reliability for the City of Everett’s water treatment plant at Lake Chaplain and the PUD’s Jackson Hydroelectric Project powerhouse.
The PUD will also perform work this summer in preparation for new large commercial customers arriving. Crews will install two new underground feeder circuits to eventually energize the new Northpoint development, which spans 10 properties in the Smokey Point area and relocate infrastructure to eventually serve a new Costco.
And later this summer, PUD crews will relocate approximately 60 transmission and distribution poles in Edmonds, Washington, to help with a road improvement project to increase accessibility for sidewalks.
Along with two projects that will extend fiber optic and communication equipment to improve reliability, the PUD plans to replace hundreds of aging poles, assess and treat thousands of poles and replace dozens of miles of aging underground cable.
And the PUD’s vegetation management team will have a dozen crews trimming trees across the utility’s service territory throughout the summer. The PUD trims trees on upwards of 450 circuit miles each year to aid in reliability, it noted.
California ISO issues heat bulletin in advance of forecast high temperatures
June 14, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 14, 2021
The California Independent System Operator (ISO) on June 11 issued a heat bulletin in advance of high temperatures forecast for this week.
Although no outages or other power disruptions were expected, triple-digit heat is forecast to start spreading across California and the southwest Tuesday, June 15 through Friday, June 18, and the ISO could take a number of actions to reduce demand and access additional energy.
The National Weather Service on June 14 said that temperatures well into the 110s are forecast for the next few days in the Desert Southwest, and temperatures exceeding 100 as far north as Montana especially June 15 will be 25+ degrees above average. “Dozens (possibly hundreds) of daily record high maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to be set over the next few days in California, Intermountain West, Desert Southwest, Rockies, and High Plains,” the NWS said.
The ISO declared a grid Restricted Maintenance Operation (RMO) for noon to 10 p.m. from Tuesday, June 15, through Friday, June 18, due to forecasted high temperatures and demand. The RMO cautions market participants that all available resources are needed, and to defer scheduled maintenance on generators or transmission lines, if possible.
CAISO last week said it was still too early to know the precise impact that the high temperatures will have on the electric grid. But the ISO “is closely monitoring conditions and the anticipated increase in demand for electricity and will issue additional public notifications as warranted.”
Those notifications could include a series of steps aimed at reducing electricity use, such as a Flex Alert, a voluntary call for consumers to conserve electricity between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. In extreme hot weather, those are the most difficult hours of the day to balance electricity supply and demand because solar resources are diminishing as more air conditioners and other home appliances are typically being used.
“In the past, Californians responding to calls for conservation has significantly reduced stress on the grid and avoided further emergency actions, including the need to rely on reserve power resources or rotating outages. But as happened during an intense regional heat wave last August that hit much of the Western U.S., rotating power outages could become necessary if weather and stressed grid conditions persist or worsen,” the grid operator said.
Forced outages, potential record power use lead to tight Texas grid conditions
June 14, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 14, 2021
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on June 14 asked state residents to reduce electric use as much as possible through June 18. A significant number of forced generation outages combined with potential record electric use for the month of June has resulted in tight grid conditions, the grid operator noted.
Generator owners have reported approximately 11,000 megawatts (MW) of generation is on forced outage for repairs, ERCOT said. Of that, approximately 8,000 MW is thermal and the rest is intermittent resources. According to ERCOT’s summer seasonal assessment of resource adequacy, a typical range of thermal generation outages on hot summer days is around 3,600 MW.
“We will be conducting a thorough analysis with generation owners to determine why so many units are out of service,” said ERCOT Vice President of Grid Planning and Operations Woody Rickerson in a statement. “This is unusual for this early in the summer season.”
According to generation owners, the number of outages should decrease throughout the week.
Wind output for June 14 was expected to be 3,500 to 6,000 MW between 3 and 9 p.m. This is roughly 1,500 MW lower than what is typically available for peak conditions. Wind output is expected to increase as the week goes on, ERCOT said.
The peak load forecast for June 14 may exceed 73,000 MW, the grid operator said, noting that the peak demand record for June is 69,123 MW set on June 27, 2018 between 4 and 5 p.m.
DOE releases interactive tool for tracking microgrids installed throughout the U.S.
June 1, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 1, 2021
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on May 26 announced the release of a new, interactive tool for tracking microgrids installed throughout the U.S.
The DOE noted that a microgrid is a local grid with an independent source of energy capable of disconnecting or “islanding” from the utility grid. Microgrids improve resilience by allowing critical facilities to continue operating in the event of a utility-grid outage. For manufacturers and industrial facilities, microgrids can also help ensure delivery of the high-quality, reliable electricity necessary to maintain today’s increasingly digitized operations, DOE said.
The Microgrid Installation Database includes a comprehensive listing of the country’s 461 operational microgrids that provide a total of 3.1 gigawatts of electricity. The information, which is updated on a monthly basis, is presented in a tabular format to help users easily access and sort data, DOE said.
The site features an interactive map of microgrid installations across the U.S., he ability to filter and search for sites by technology, end-user application, generation and storage capacity, and operating year, and downloadable data files.
The database is available here.
The new Microgrid Installation Database is co-located with a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Installation Database, which captures the nation’s CHP installations. CHP technologies allow facilities to generate on-site electric power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source.
Public power utilities and microgrids
A number of public power utilities are actively pursuing or have completed microgrid projects.
Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, recently visited a Snohomish County PUD (Everett, WA) microgrid site. The Arlington microgrid is currently undergoing testing and commissioning and should be fully operational in a few months.
Meanwhile, the first phase of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority’s (WAPA) plan to develop an 18-megawatt (MW) microgrid, complete with a battery storage system, for the west end of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, has received an initial allocation of federal funding, WAPA said on April 9.
Also in April, Chattanooga, Tenn., Mayor Andy Berke, EPB President and CEO David Wade, Chattanooga Police Chief David Roddy, and Chattanooga Fire Chief Phil Hyman confirmed that construction would soon begin on a new collaborative microgrid project between the City of Chattanooga and EPB. The project aims to increase resilience and redundancy of power supply to the city’s public safety agencies via on-site solar arrays, traditional backup generation, battery storage and a microgrid controller.
And in January 2021, Lincoln Electric System in Nebraska reported that it put a 29-megawatt (MW) microgrid in service at virtually no cost.
NERC summer assessment warns of potential energy shortfalls
May 26, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 26, 2021
Parts of North America are at elevated or high risk of energy shortfalls this summer during above-normal peak temperatures, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warns in its 2021 summer reliability assessment, which it released on May 26,
While NERC’s risk scenario analysis shows adequate resources and energy for most of North America, Texas, New England, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and parts of the West are at an elevated risk of energy emergencies, NERC said.
In the high risk category is California, which relies on large energy imports during peak demand scenarios and when solar resource output retreats in the evening hours. While more than 3 gigawatts of additional resources are expected in California this summer compared to 2020, most will be solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, NERC said.
While these plants can provide energy to support peak demand, solar PV output falls off rapidly in late afternoon while high demand often remains, NERC noted. “Reliance on imports during these periods is an increasing reliability risk,” NERC said.
While actions taken by the California Public Utilities Commission, California Independent System Operator and utilities to procure additional resources will help, the Western Interconnection’s increase in demand and decline in resources may reduce the amount of surplus capacity available when California is in shortfall, according to NERC.
As identified in the assessment, abnormal conditions that lead to elevated risk include prolonged above-average temperatures, low wind and solar scenarios, reduced transfers due to wildfire-related transmission outages.
The assessment’s other key findings include:
- Protecting the critical electrical workforce from health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic remains a priority. “Protocols put in place for reducing risks to personnel in control centers and on the front lines, including mutual assistance in hurricane-damaged areas, should be maintained as warranted by public health conditions. In 2021, there is remaining uncertainty in demand projections as governments adjust to changing public health guidelines and conditions and as the behavior of society adapts”
- Late summer wildfire season in the western United States and Canada poses risk to bulk power system reliability. Government agencies warn of the potential for above-normal wildfire risk beginning in July in parts of the western United States as well as central and western Canada. Operation of the bulk power system can be impacted in areas where wildfires are active as well as areas where there is heightened risk of wildfire ignition due to weather and ground conditions.
To download the summer reliability assessment, click here.
Rochelle Municipal Utilities in Illinois breaks ground on new substation
May 19, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 18, 2021
The City of Rochelle and Rochelle Municipal Utilities in Illinois have broken ground for a $13.8 million substation to serve new industrial growth.
The substation will provide 34.5 kilovolt (kV) and 13.8 kV service to support growth in the city’s southern corridor and increase reliability for nearby industries and create the ability for businesses to have redundant electrical feeds.
The City of Rochelle purchased just over 16 acres for the construction of a new substation in 2019.
The substation will also introduce a new voltage class so the city can provide electricity to larger users. In another first, the substation project was split into two yards with the distribution yard owned and operated by Rochelle Municipal Utilities and the transmission yard owned and operated by investor-owned Commonwealth Edison.
Last June, the City of Rochelle sold its transmission assets to Commonwealth Edison. The transaction included about 20 miles of 138-kV lines and associated facilities at the utility’s No. 2 substation.
Commonwealth Edison already had the personnel and equipment needed to maintain and operate the assets as its transmission system surrounds the Rochelle Municipal Utilities’ facilities, allowing Commonwealth Edison to reduce Rochelle’s annual operating costs. Rochelle Municipal Utilities owned and operated the transmission lines since August 1, 2015.
“For a community of our size to be home to three electrical substations is unheard of,” Mayor John Bearrows said in a statement. “The investment our community is making in reliable power for residential, commercial and industrial customers is key to our future growth.”
“Funding project of this magnitude is only possible with the foresight of our Mayor, Council and Staff,” City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh said in a statement. “Our financial management is top notch and as a result, we can provide the infrastructure to attract development and create jobs.”
Rochelle, about 80 miles West of Chicago, has a population of about 10,000 people and is known as the Hub City because several transportation routes, including two major railroads, pass through the city.
California ISO says grid better positioned for this summer, but reliability risks remain
May 18, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 18, 2021
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) expects electricity supply conditions for the upcoming summer to be in better shape than last year, but the power grid is still susceptible to stress during extreme heat waves that extend across the West, according to the CAISO’s summer outlook released on May 12.
The 2021 Summer Loads and Resources Assessment projects the energy grid will have more capacity to meet demand in 2021 than it did in 2020, “a critical element for averting rotating power outages, such as those that occurred last August,” CAISO noted in a news release.
CAISO’s annual summer assessment evaluates expected supply and demand to help prepare for the hot weather months of June through September.
CAISO said the additional capacity is the result of resource procurement ordered by the state. A series of market redesigns and policy changes in CAISO’s system taken since September 2020 along with improved communication and coordination protocols has improved overall preparedness for this summer, it said. “However, if heat events similar to those that gripped the western states region last summer occur, imported energy from other states could be limited, and the power grid will be at risk of supply shortages and possible emergency conditions,” the grid operator said.
This year’s outlook includes roughly 2,000 megawatts (MW) of additional, readily available resources coming online to serve ISO net peak demand compared to this time last year, including battery storage that is expected to absorb excess renewable energy in the middle of the day, and inject it back into the grid after sunset when solar generation goes offline, the grid operator said.
The state and CAISO are continuing to pursue other opportunities to add an additional 1,000 to 1,500 MW of new resources to the system by summer.
The 2021 forecasted peak demands are about the same as last year under normal weather conditions.
However, extreme heat events are becoming more likely.
By incorporating last August’s historical heat wave into the assessment, it pushes weather previously regarded as extreme into what is now considered more normal ranges, CAISO noted.
The grid operator reported that California’s hydroelectric energy supplies will also be significantly lower than normal, with the state weathering a second consecutive year of below normal precipitation. Snowpack water content peaked at 60 percent of normal, similar to last year’s conditions, and reservoir levels have decreased to 70 percent of normal.
Meanwhile, imports will play a substantial role in this summer’s power grid reliability.
The assessment measured the likelihood of energy deficiencies and system emergencies, finding that at typical import levels based on historical data, there is a low probability of grid stress. But results based on analyses of more limited import levels associated with a widespread heat event showed that the probability of having to rely on measures to reduce load during emergency conditions, including rotating power outages, increases significantly during high demand conditions.
“Conservation will be pivotal to cushioning the grid when it needs it the most, typically during hot summer evenings when demand remains high for air conditioning use and solar production is going offline,” CAISO said.
In coordination with the California Public Utilities Commission, CAISO will issue Flex Alerts when system conditions are forecast to be tight, as it has done in prior years. Flex Alerts are voluntary calls to consumers to cut down on electricity use from 4–9 p.m. The state and CAISO are planning to launch a refreshed Flex Alert campaign in June to alert residents earlier of a potential supply shortage and spread the conservation message more widely.
Grid stability will also be improved through expanded communications and coordination among utilities and stakeholders in the state and across the West, CAISO said. The CAISO and its partners will continue to seek out and use extraordinary measures during emergencies, in an effort to avoid rotating outages, it added.
Elliot Mainzer, President and CEO of CAISO, discussed the state power grid’s summer outlook in an episode of the American Public Power Association’s Public Power Now podcast.