Author Topic: CA Electric Power Chief Says Serious Problems Lie Ahead  (Read 268 times)

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Offline Elderberry

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CA Electric Power Chief Says Serious Problems Lie Ahead
« on: April 20, 2021, 06:26:39 pm »
The Post & Email by David Wojick 4/19/2021

First, Mainzer explains his job: “CAISO operates the high-voltage transmission system and the energy market for about 80% of California and a small portion of Nevada. We’re the entity that matches the real-time supply of electricity with demand and is responsible for efficiently integrating the next generation of clean energy resources into the grid. In addition to our fundamental responsibility as a primarily single-state independent system operator, increasingly we’re taking on broader functions across the western United States. Those include monitoring reliability and operating an energy imbalance market that lets us buy and sell energy with the Northwest, the Intermountain West, and the desert Southwest.”

So CASIO’s job is to keep the lights on, just like ERCOT in Texas. It is a little scary to learn that California is also operating the energy imbalance market for the entire Western Interconnection, which is the western grid covering about a third of contiguous America. So if California goes black, which is increasingly likely, maybe the western grid goes with it!

As for last summer’s blackouts, Mainzer of course blames climate change. But he then goes on to finger solar power, saying this:

“California hadn’t planned for enough capacity to be available in the net peak period to ride out a super heating event effectively. As people are coming home in the evening, turning on appliances, ramping up air conditioners to cool down their houses, that’s the maximum point of stress on the system. That net peak, just after sunset, is also when over 10,000 megawatts of solar power stop generating. For most of the day, solar effectively acts like negative load, reducing demand for electricity from other resources. As the sun sets, those other resources have to ramp up rapidly to meet the load on the system. California just did not have enough dispatchable capacity available to meet demand. The resource adequacy planning and procurement standards hadn’t quite kept up.” (Emphasis added.)

So they failed to notice that the sun goes down. Sounds about right for California. I think his “hadn’t quite kept up” is wildly understated poli-speak.

More: https://www.thepostemail.com/2021/04/19/ca-electric-power-chief-says-serious-problems-lie-ahead/

Offline GtHawk

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Re: CA Electric Power Chief Says Serious Problems Lie Ahead
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2021, 08:24:00 pm »

“California hadn’t planned for enough capacity to be available in the net peak period to ride out a super heating event effectively"

You know I have been in California all my life and get get my head around his super heating BS. Is he talking about summer weather which has at times been higher than last year or is he referring to the fires...again not unusual for California. Maybe what he is really doing is trying to shift attention from the real causes, deferred(greed) maintenance and asinine forestry management police which resulted in excess fuel accumulating on the forest floor and trees growing over transmission lines.

Also maybe the deficient grid capacity for all the extra draw by the growing number of electric vehicles and Noisome's green mandates might have something to do with the serious problems ahead.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2021, 08:27:19 pm by GtHawk »