Enlarge / August 14 and 15 noticed a heatwave drive rolling blackouts. After which on August 16, a station in Dying Valley hit 130°F… (credit score: NASA EO)
In mid-August, simply earlier than dry lightning storms ignited a sequence of fires that will break information in California, an intense heatwave resulted in rolling blackouts on two consecutive days. The difficulty got here within the night, when photo voltaic technology drops off, main some to say this was the consequence of counting on renewable electrical energy. Nevertheless it’s not that easy, because the outages might have been averted. A brand new “preliminary root trigger evaluation” report from two state commissions and the California Unbiased System Operator that runs the grid presents a clearer image of what went mistaken.
The rolling outages affected a number of hundred thousand individuals beginning round 6:30pm on each August 14 and 15. They had been truly the results of the grid’s guidelines: as soon as the remaining reserve technology falls beneath six p.c of present demand, the grid operator is required to institute rolling blackouts.
The report blames the necessity for outages on three issues: excessive and widespread sizzling climate, a failure to replace peak-demand forecasting practices as photo voltaic technology grows, and errors on the grid market that led to some vegetation exporting energy when it was truly wanted in-state.
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