INTRODUCTION:
Thousands of homeless people (aka bums) allowed to live on the streets. Forests allowed to be "natural" so forest fires can be really intense. A high poverty rate. Earthquakes once in a while. And now rolling blackouts. All in California, the former greatest state ... that is no longer great at all.
SUMMARY:
The peak hours for electricity use are from 6:30 pm to 10 pm when solar and wind power are the least available. This is called the Duck Curve because the profile of energy use over a 24 hour day looks like the silhouette of a duck on a chart. I guess some reporter came up with that amusing name.
A "green power grid" is not a fit for the typical "duck curve" dual peak load day – peaking at mid-day (lunchtime), and again at sunset (dinnertime). California’s blackouts are a design failure. A centrally planned political failure, not a public utility or market failure.
The CA grid operator had been unable to buy enough imported power during the regional heat wave. California depends on 25 percent imported electric power, mainly hydropower from other states. California is located on the western edge of the country. Further east gets darker earlier, so there is no solar power available for CA to import. Imported wind power might be available for CA, but its so volatile it can't be relied on. Excess out of state natural gas power had been available for CA in the past, but is now needed within in the other states to back up their expanding use of green power.
The only remedy for this problem is a diverse mix of power sources ... with solar and wind power REMAINING a small percentage of the mix. The recent CA rolling blackouts exposed the green power goal of 100 percent green power as a recipe for one electric power crisis after another. Electrical system reliability is apparently not important to the green power industry.
Natural gas power plants generate the lowest cost energy, by a significant margin. The plants also easily accommodate the needs of the electric grid, and readily backstop unreliable green energy. Air pollution emissions are insignificant. CO2 is emitted, but CO2 is not pollution.
DETAILS:
The wave of power outages in California during the heat wave of 2020 are mostly in the PG&E power grid area. 21 local green energy-buying cooperatives (aka Community Choice Aggregators) are buying green power and green jobs for their communities. These co-ops buy power for 10 million customers in 170 cities and counties. Their goal is 100 percent green power by the 2030’s.
Governor Newsom has been forced to sort of admit that green power falls short. The CA power grid has been deregulated and decentralized. That allows local communities to buy their own power, resulting in a lack of enough diverse power sources during hot weather.
The technical reason for the rolling blackouts was the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) could not find enough power reserves from out-of-state hydropower suppliers after three CA power plants had to shut down and wind power was weak.
A heat wave and high humidity spiked air conditioning needs, resulting in a Stage 3 alert where mainline electric utilities had to ask customers to curtail electric use or they would start cutting power by rolling blackouts.
This was not downed power lines, but a lack of available fossil fuel power plants to come online when needed. What happened August 14, and again on August 18, is that power plants went offline for emergency repairs. So stored natural gas may have been available as a fuel, but the natural gas plants were temporarily closed for repairs!
The power shortage was mainly in PG&E territory in Northern and Central California. There were 99 power outages in PG&E’s customer service area on August 18 at 7:15 pm. Equal to one outage for every 51,515 customers. San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) had only 3 outages. Southern California Edison had multiple outages but does not provide data online.
Arizona Public Service (APS) averages 1 or 2 power outages per 600,000 customers. They have greater diversity in power sources. The key to avoiding blackouts is a diverse energy mix. APS can tap 18 percent of coal power that was not available to any California electric utilities. APS still relies on 50 percent natural gas power, compared to 29% for SDG&E and 0 to 17 percent for PG&E. Natural gas power plants start-up faster and can produce power 24 hour per day, compared to wind mainly producing power at night (typically 4 hours) and solar power (up to 10 hours per day).
Community energy-buying cooperatives (called Community Choice Aggregators) in local areas buy electricity, instead of the monopoly utility companies like Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&S), So Cal Edison and San Diego Gas and Election (SDG&E) buying the electricity for customers in their service areas.
Decentralizing the buying of power to local communities, instead of by monopoly public utilities, gives local politicians the ability to buy votes with green power jobs for their cities and counties. There will be strong local political resistance to curtailing green power mandates in California. Green power in California is a jobs program, not a good energy policy.