Mistaken power outages may have "inadvertently" helped prevent rolling blackouts
RANCHO CORDOVA — A miscommunication between a Northern California utility company and the state's power grid operator shut off power for thousands Tuesday and inadvertently helped keep the grid stable.
The California Independent System Operator contacted the Northern California Power Agency dispatch center with the first level of the Energy Emergency Alert 3, requesting to shed a 46.02 mega-watt load to help prevent widespread rotating outages.
The NCPA dispatcher contacted member systems in Alameda, Lodi, Santa Clara, Palo Also, Healdsburg, and Ukiah to tell them their power would be temporarily turned off.
Once this process was started, the NCPA dispatcher notified Cal ISO and learned, only then, that there was a "misunderstanding" of the original request.
Instead of rotating outages, Cal ISO intended to notify the NCPA that rotating outages could be possible.
A Cal ISO spokesperson told CBS13: "We sent the first notification, and a few providers misinterpreted and started outages. It was unfortunate, and we regret that it happened. We have reached out to our customers and tightened up the understanding to prevent a repeat of that."
The mistake left thousands, including 1,300 customers in Lodi, without power for upwards of an hour between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
The NCPA's General Manager, Randy Howard, echoed the Cal ISO spokesperson's statement that the misunderstanding will be avoided in the future.
"We are now closely coordinating with the CAISO to review the conversation that occurred between the dispatchers involved to avoid a miscommunication in the future," said Howard in a statement to CBS13 on Wednesday.
Although the outages were accidental, Howard said they relieved stress on the state's power grid.
"The action taken yesterday by the NCPA member systems mentioned above, while inadvertent, helped to ultimately benefit and keep the overall grid stable through the most extreme heat of the day and a record CAISO load," said Howard."The action taken yesterday by the NCPA member systems mentioned above, while inadvertent, helped to ultimately benefit and keep the overall grid stable through the most extreme heat of the day and a record CAISO load," said Howard.
