Greg Lefevre on how California power suppliers were driven 'over the edge'

Greg Lefevre

CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre is covering the state's energy shortage, which power officials warn could get worse Thursday.

Q: What's the power situation look like for Thursday?

LEFEVRE: California's Independent System Operator (ISO) has issued a severe warning of major statewide blackouts Thursday morning. The ISO says that California will be receiving less outside electricity Thursday morning than it received Wednesday. That means blackouts, if they occur, would range statewide from near the Oregon border to San Diego.

The state was short of electricity for about 500,000 homes Wednesday. Experts fear that Thursday's shortage will be at least that and perhaps several times more than that.

The first blackout could occur at 7 a.m. PST (10 a.m. EST), the beginning of a two-hour morning peak period, when residents are still heating their homes, breakfasts and coffee, and when offices are starting up their heating systems, copiers and computers. That dual demand, experts say, is a double whammy on an already strained electrical system.

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Q: How were Wednesday's blackouts halted?

LEFEVRE: The state power authority is buying electricity literally by the hour. They've received electricity from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which generates its own electricity, and from other power companies in Western Canada.

That additional electricity, plus conservation by California users, averted more blackouts during Wednesday evening commute hours, which are considered to be a peak usage time. ISO said that there will be no blackouts at least until 10 p.m. PST (1 a.m. EST), and the agency hopes that by that time usage will have dropped to the point where the state will be able to meet its own electrical demand.

Q: How were blackouts conducted?

LEFEVRE: Pacific Gas & Electric said the blackouts, while certainly inconvenient, came off as planned and as designed. PG&E spokesman Ron Low said the utility had been ordered to take as many as 500,000 customers off line.

The ISO said the crisis reached the breaking point around 11 a.m. PST when a power plant on the central California coast unexpectedly went off line. That loss of a relatively minor amount of generating capacity was enough to "drive us over the edge," state officials said.

PG&E implemented rolling blackouts to about 6 to 8 percent of its customers at a time, beginning shortly before noon local time and ending around 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST). The utility darkened neighborhoods by remote computer-controlled switches and by dispatching crews into the field to manually pull breakers, taking neighborhoods off line. The blackouts lasted an hour to an hour and a half each.

Q: How are customers notified of impending blackouts?

LEFEVRE: PG&E customers have block numbers (1-14)) printed on their utility bills. PG&E notifies customers via the public media which block is next to go dark. Wednesday, the first block was No. 3. No. 4 and parts of No. 5 also went dark in succession.

A block is a cluster of circuits, and it may involve dozens of electrical circuits scattered widely over PG&E's coverage area. For example, block No. 3, which went dark first, represented neighborhoods in San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, Silicon Valley -- where Apple computer went dark -- historic sections of Monterey, as well as parts of Oakland, Napa Valley and sections of California's agriculturally rich areas.

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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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