Looming Labor Day heat wave set to test California's power grid
SONOMA COUNTY – A heat wave is expected to bring triple-digit temperatures to much of the Bay Area this Labor Day weekend, and with it a test for California's electrical grid.
It was high temperatures that caused rolling blackouts two years ago, and regulators have warned that heat could stress the system again. August of 2020 was a month that brought lightning, fires, a heat wave, and rolling blackouts for 2 million Californians.
"I feel angry, actually, as to why this happens in a state like this, in a country like ours," one resident said at the time.
A changing climate is producing a once-in-a-millennium drought, as California tries to decarbonize its energy system. A high-wire act, so to speak. This weekend will be another test.
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"You have to make sure that as you shut the dirty thing down, the clean thing is already up and running, or you're going to have a problem," Michael Wara of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment told KPIX 5. "That was, maybe, what was exposed a little bit a couple years ago."
Wara said 2020 did produce some changes.
"The last two years have seen a massive effort to deploy energy storage," Wara explained. "To keep power plants online, open new power plants, to make sure that we have the resources available for a heat wave just like this weekend."
The state has also changed how it forecasts energy demand, especially as drought cuts into our hydroelectric production. Still, regulators say regional heat waves pose a challenge.
"If we get into an extreme event, we'll see," Alice Reynolds with the California Public Utilities Commission said in May. "We're worried, we're very humble about what might happen. We may have to call on Californians to take steps to just manage their loads during those hot periods."
"And so it is going to be a test of the work we have done in California," Wara said ahead of the heat. "Utilities, regulators, the governor's team. But I think it's a test at least much better prepared for than we were two years ago."
One possible bit of good news looking at those Saturday and Sunday temperatures, energy consumption in California tends to be lower on the weekends.