Watts Up? Schwarzenegger Weathers Perfect Energy Storm, Barely

Democratic Governor Gray Davis was flying high five years ago when rolling blackouts hit California, kicking him into a tailspin from which he never recovered. Those blackouts, later shown to have been partly manipulated by Enron and other power generators, occurred when electric power demand from the state’s regulated utilities was 41,000 megawatts. This week Schwarzenegger narrowly managed to avert blackouts with the peak power demand at 52,000 megawatts. 

He was helped because the Enron-style market manipulation, which led to billions in fines, was a thing of the past. But Schwarzenegger nearly crashed as well. The conditions for another tailspin were omnipresent. The demand for electric power was suddenly much higher than it was just last summer. And far higher than forecast when he came into office after ousting Davis in the Golden State’s raucous recall election of 2003.

Just after Schwarzenegger was elected in October 2003, the management agency of California’s electric power grid, the California Independent System Operator, delivered a five-year forecast of the state’s power needs. In the summer of 2005, the agency forecast, California’s regulated private utilities would have a peak demand of just over 45,000 megawatts. That forecast proved to be exactly on target. In the summer of 2006, agency predicted that the peak demand would be just over 46,000 megawatts. That forecast was off by a whopping 6,000 megawatts.

What happened? A perfect storm of an unusual weather pattern, the greenhouse effect, increased urbanization, and the intensified electronicization of society.

The sustained nature of this extreme heat wave around the state confounded normal utility reserve planning, which is predicated on “once-in-a-decade” events. This was a “once in a half-century event.” With climate change — some of it caused by global warming, some of it by sprawling urbanization, which heats up its environs and keeps them hotter through the night  — such rare occurrences may well become regular occurrences. Not only in California, but across the nation and around the world. As usual, California was on the cutting edge of crisis, if not crisis-management.

Add in modern factors. First, the increasing intensity of power usage in the home and office due to our embrace of a variety of electronic devices. Second, the phenomenon of pushing development to the more affordable inland away from the pricey coast This makes air conditioning even more necessary. The result? California turned into a giant heat sink. Get the density high enough and buildings and their environs never really cool off over night. This makes the demand for air conditioning ever greater during the day, especially after a weekend of sun-baked structures turning into giant solar collectors.

Overstressed equipment — transformers and some power lines — failed in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. LA’s San Fernando Valley topped out at a Death Valley-like 119 degrees on last weekend. Worst of all, some 100 people died of apparent heat-related causes, many of them in the Central Valley. But, despite service outages, rolling blackouts were averted. Narrowly.

New power plants and long-term power contracts initiated by former Governor Davis are partly responsible, as is Schwarzenegger’s shepherding of those projects, increasing the utilities’ power reserve requirement, and forcing improvements in power transmission. But California, which has never really resolved the aftermath of the 2001 electric power crisis, just got a huge wake-up call. And there is no real sign that it is ready for the next such event when the state’s population and power consumption have grown even further.