California had rolling blackouts
during a heat wave on two days
in August 2020.
Now CA is extending the lives
of four aging natural gas plants
it has been seeking to retire
for a decade.
The unanimous vote
by four members
of the State Water
Resources Control
Board follows a 2019
analysis that identified
a potential electricity
capacity shortfall
beginning in the
summer of 2021.
Missed it by
one year !
One board member
was absent
from the meeting.
During a video feed, the board
heard from public officials,
power plant owners and state
residents, many concerned
about electric reliability after
the August blackouts.
Others wanted to close
those "polluting"
electric power plants
near their coastal homes.
A 2010 state policy was
to phase out the use of
ocean water for cooling
power plants. That policy
applies to all four plants.
The vote was claimed to be
unrelated to last month’s
outages (I don't believe it),
which the state’s electric
grid operator has blamed
on a gas plant dropping
offline, low wind power
and a lack of imported
electricity available
from other states
due to high
temperatures
across the West.
California made the right decision
to address its power needs after
the blackouts, which critics,
including Donald Trump, have
correctly blamed on the state’s
aggressive clean energy goals.
The water board approved
up to three-year extensions
for the AES Corp-owned
Alamitos and Huntington Beach
plants and GenOn Holdings Inc.
owned Ormond Beach plant,
as well as a one year extension
for AES’ Redondo Beach facility.