Posted at 10:41 p.m. PST Thursday, Dec. 7, 2000

Power shortage worsens State pushed to brink of blackouts as supply falls

Story: The plan for rolling blackouts BY STEVE JOHNSON AND JOHN WOOLFOLK Mercury News California authorities Thursday declared an unprecedented statewide power shortage, an ominous and unsettling sign that electricity troubles are not only worsening but veering dangerously out of control.

With an extraordinary number of power plants out of service for repairs and cold weather bearing down on California, state officials said the crunch is likely to continue today and into this weekend.

``It's the `Perfect Storm' in electricity for California,'' said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis. ``The combination of events is unprecedented and extraordinary. The worst could be yet to come.''

Authorities who oversee the state power grid for the first time declared a ``stage-three emergency'' -- issued because more than 98.5 percent of available power was in use Thursday. The order came at 5:15 p.m. and lasted for more than two hours as electricity use was peaking. WAYS TO CONSERVE Turn off computers, monitors, printers, and other electronic gear when not in use.

Use laptop computers and ink-jet printers when possible, because they consume 90 percent less energy.

Delay turning on holiday lights until after 7 p.m.

Avoid using major household appliances during peak demand periods.

Set thermostats to 68 degrees when you're home, 55 degrees when away.

Caulk, weatherstrip around doors, windows and here pipes enter house.

Keep furnaces clean, lubricated and adjusted. Clean washable furnace filters.

Insulate water heaters, adjust them to "warm'' setting of about 120 degrees.

For more energy saving tips call PG&E's Smarter Energy Line at (800) 933- 9555.

The declaration came after four consecutive days of stage-two shortages that required hundreds of companies to immediately cut power use under a deal that grants them rate reductions.

``It's going to be a tough weekend,'' said Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman with the Independent System Operator, which oversees the flow of power throughout most of the state.

``We've got this cold snap coming,'' he said. ``The whole West is bracing for the worst. We all feed off the same system. We just need people to understand that the situation has to be dealt with.'' Temperatures are expected to dip into the 30s in the Bay Area over the weekend.

Stephanie McCorkle of the ISO said the state was short 500 megawatts, enough to power half a million homes. Had emergency power not become available at the last moment, the agency would have ordered rotating outages to free up that amount of electricity, she said. ``This is the closest we've ever come to rotating blackouts,'' McCorkle said. ``We were within minutes.''

Workers on alert Because of the possibility of blackouts, officials at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. had kept an unusual number of employees on alert through the night and planned to be ready for blackouts today. ``Resources are going to be tight. They are tight throughout the Western United States,'' said PG&E spokesman Ron Low. ``We had all our staff and individuals in place.''

California officials had never before issued a stage-three emergency. On June 14, about 100,000 PG&E customers lost power when authorities ordered rolling blackouts in Northern California. But in that instance, the outages were confined because of an overheating on some Bay Area high-voltage lines.

In a stage-three emergency, the entire state is considered at-risk. Under such circumstances, officials say they may be forced to initiate rolling blackouts, which would mean methodically shutting off power temporarily in selected areas to keep the entire power grid from collapsing.

State and PG&E officials said they were narrowly able to avert blackouts thanks to emergency help from the Western Area Power Administration, which provided electricity from Glen Dam, and the California Department of Water Resources, which agreed to cut some power it uses to irrigate farms. Authorities also managed to keep some power that had been slated to be exported to Arizona for use in California, they said.

A deal was also worked out with Southern California air quality managers to allow the AES Alamitos power plant -- which had been out of operation after exceeding the amount of air pollution it could emit for the year -- to come back into service. The plant generates about 2,000 megawatts, which is sufficient to power 2 million homes.

`Stuff in progress' J. Stuart Ryan, president of AES Pacific, which owns the plant in Los Alamitos, declined to discuss the negotiations Thursday night except to say, ``There is stuff in progress as we speak. All our units are in the process of coming back up.''

On Wednesday, AES Pacific manager Aaron Thomas said the company had been in discussions with top state officials to get the plant up and running. ``The governor's office is fully briefed and engaged on this . . . trying to work out some compromise.''

State officials said the power problems this week stemmed largely from the loss of 11,000 megawatts -- about one fourth of the power normally available to the state. Much of that was because of plants down for maintenance. That troubles Loretta Lynch, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

``I am just perplexed why things have come to the state they have come to,'' Lynch said. ``There is plenty of power capacity in this state. One would think we could manage it a lot more effectively.''

On Tuesday, state officials launched inspections of a number of power plants that were undergoing repairs, because of growing suspicions that their operators had turned them off merely to reduce supply and artificially boost the price of power. But no solid evidence of wrongdoing has emerged from the spot checks so far and officials with power supply companies said they don't like being mistrusted.

``We're kind of being vilified,'' said Tom Williams of Duke Energy. ``I think it's unproductive and it's unfortunate.''

Despite the near blackouts, San Jose mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink said it didn't change the city's objection to Calpine Corp.'s proposed 600-megawatt power plant in Coyote Valley.

Instead of pushing for such plants, ``it's important for everyone to conserve what they can in light of the power emergency,'' Vossbrink added.

http://www0.mercurycenter.com/cgi-bin/edtools/printpage/printpage_ba.cgi

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff writers Dion Nissenbaum and Marc Gladstone contributed to this report.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 08, 2000

Answers

I live in Wyoming and speak to my California office and family there everyday, no one seems to be concerned or knows anything about it. Does anyone think this may be Y2K related? I think it is...

-- bob tambo (bob@hbra.com), December 08, 2000.

This is a case of having well over 40 'no touch' days during the summer.
Meaning no power plants were to be taken offline for any NON-emergency maintenance.
All of the power plants were running at full bore for months, these are all older power plants 20+ years. Machinery don't like being run at 100% for to long - it's a Murphy thing.
This is supposed to be a mild time of year, folks you better be ready for a cold winter.

Is this y2k related? I'm sure a plant or two was not up and running due to the 'bug'. No business is going to ever admit it.

Good luck, because we're all gonna need it

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), December 08, 2000.

Yes, what do you all think about it being y2k related possibly ? Could they have been testing for "2001" on top of having a shortage??

-- surfergirl (anon@wondering.com), December 08, 2000.

I agree with you. And yes, in my opinion we should all get ready for problems.. Other states are not immune to this...

-- surgergirl (anon@nospam.com), December 08, 2000.

It's hard to believe the people bob knows in California aren't aware of this. Even Peter Jennings was talking about California's power shortage the other night. The state turned off the lights on the state tree after only a half hour to conserve power.

I doubt it has anything to do with y2k, though.

-- (just@passing.thru), December 08, 2000.