Greg Lefevre: California under Stage 3 power alert

Greg Lefevre

CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre is covering the state's energy shortage, which, on Tuesday, led to the issuing of a Stage 3 alert. It means power reserves are extremely low, rolling blackouts are possible and Californians are asked to conserve electricity.

Q: Why did the California Independent System Operator (ISO), which manages the state's power grid, issue a Stage 3 alert on Tuesday morning?

LEFEVRE: One of the reasons for this electrical shortage this morning in California is that the ISO says there is a shortage of natural gas. That is, the state is having a difficult time getting natural gas piped into the state of California. Natural gas is what powers most of these newer power plants here in California.

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Many of these plants are switching to oil, (but) that takes a little bit of time, to get these plants switched over, and thus there is apparently not quite enough electricity to go around. As sources in the industry tell us, it takes a while, sometimes hours or perhaps half a day, to switch a plant over to that form of fuel source.

The problem seems to have originated in San Diego in far Southern California, where there was not enough natural gas to power the plants. It's been very cold (Monday) and (Tuesday) in California and a lot of folks up and down California are firing up their furnaces at home, and that means more draw on the natural gas.

Q: These power alerts have become frequent in recent days, but there haven't been any blackouts, at least not yet, so it sounds as though authorities are crying wolf. How do power companies and the state officials convey how important and how critical this situation is?

LEFEVRE: One of the things that has been impressed upon Californians is to conserve electricity. Don't turn on that extra light. One of the state legislators (Monday) used an expletive when he said, "Please turn out the lights." The people of California generally conserve electricity. This state is number 47 in the nation in terms of per capita electrical use.

Folks here are fairly thrifty about electricity anyway. Now, their habits are being pushed against this -- if you will -- overhanging emergency. What the people of California believe and the polls show is a tremendous amount of resentment toward the utilities and toward the state government for allowing this deregulation to occur, essentially blaming deregulation for this electrical shortage.

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Dynegy
PG&E Corporation
SoCal Edison
  • Deregulation - What this means to you - Electricity Market Issues
System Conditions - The California ISO
California Public Utilities Commission
California Utilities Emergency Association

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