California Anticipates Rolling Power Outages Sunday

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Officials warned of another string of rolling blackouts on the horizon for the Golden State Sunday as a record breaking heat wave drove temperatures up and increased strain on the power grid. A Flex Alert was in place until 9 p.m. and officials urged residents to conserve to prevent the implementation of rolling outages.

"Based on the current forecast and without significant conservation, the ISO is planning for potential rotating outages between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. today," California ISO said in a Sunday afternoon news release. "California Consumers should prepare for the possibility of power interruptions."

Although thousands of customers in Orange County experienced power outages Sunday, they were not due to any blackouts issued by California ISO or SDG&E for conservation.

So far, no rotating outages have been ordered as the most critical time frame is between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. The agency warned that residents all over the state will need to conserve to avoid or limit outages.

Many of the outages experienced in Orange County were reported to be from surrounding wildfires burning in San Diego and Los Angeles, which have had an impact on the system.

Currently there are 10,758 customers impacted by heat in Southern California and other non-fire related outages today, according to Reggie Kumar, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison.

"We understand how difficult it is for customers to be without power," Kumar said. "Especially during hot weather. We are closely monitoring heat conditions and have crews at the ready as we know high temperatures are expected through this holiday weekend."

Temperatures also rose rapidly over Labor Day weekend. In Orange County, it was expected to reach as high as 112 degrees in Fullerton on Sunday.

An excessive heat warning issued by the NWS will be in effect until 8 p.m. Monday in Orange County.

“California has always been the canary in the coal mine for climate change, and this weekend’s events only underscore that reality,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news release Sunday. “Wildfires have caused system failures, while near record energy demand is predicted as a multi-state heat wave hits the West Coast for the second time in a matter of weeks."

Newsom said the state has already taken the following actions to free up capacity:

• Working with large commercial and public energy consumers to shift their energy usage away from peak hours;
• Ramping up appeals to Californians to flex their power, pre-cool their homes before noon and conserve energy from 3 p.m. onward;
• Partnering with third party energy producers to bring back-up energy generation resources online, from the State Water Project to LADWP and the state's investor-owned utilities;
• Asking the Navy and commercial ports to use on-ship electrical generation instead of pulling resources away from the grid.

CAISO declared a Stage 2 Emergency Saturday, when the state's power grid lost about 1,600 MW in resources to wildfire.

"Fires will continue to present difficult challenges today," CAISO said Sunday. "It’s uncertain when those resources will return to service, likely lowering supplies on the hottest day of the heatwave, and making rotating outages more possible."

The heat continues to hammer the Western United States, Sunday has been the hottest day of the heatwave for California so far.

"We are also expecting to see warm overnight temperatures across California with temperatures hitting their maximum along the coast early in the day prior to onshore flow picking up in the afternoon," CAISO said.

According to the agency, temperatures were expected to cool slightly but will still remain above average next week.