The Cal ISO graphs seem to indicate that the portion of California controlled by Davis is going to have less than a 2% electric reserve by 4 p.m. today.
A couple things, yes the graphs do indicate that the Cal Iso is approaching the ragged edge, but the available generation has been derated to include minimal reserves. However, if you look at tomorrows forecast load, things could be interesting.
What I find interesting is that it is early July, the PNW has lots and lots of hydro, the big California nuke plants are on-line, and California is on the edge. That is not good news. There are some big unplanned outages, which could be part of the problem, but still, this is the time of the year that California should be ready for the big loads.
A long hot summer could be a real problem for the State of California, expecially if a wildfire were to close a transmission line or a major power plant were to have a long unplanned outage.
Oh course Gov. Davis told us all that he could solve the power crisis in just 15 minutes, if he wanted to! He just has had the motivation to solve it, I guess. (/sarcasm)
Exactly.
Historically the last three weeks in July have the highest, yearly, average mean daily temperatures. That number is just under 100F in my area