Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

> my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different. I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years.

Wait, are you saying that your concern is based on a personal experience of 10 years in a place? Besides the fact that your observations might be down to pure chance, there are also strong decade and multi-decade local climate cycles.

> Environmentalists want the plants to remain closed because they use fossil fuels and are cooled using seawater, endangering marine life.

They're currently running, but scheduled (from about a decade ago) to retire at the end of this calendar year. However recently (and prior to the rolling blackouts), several have had their retirement pushed out a year.

> This Time It's Different

I'm on the other side of the planet in Northern Europe, and I feel the same. This summer has been very warm, it feels more like we are in some Mediterranean city (especially with all the outdoor seating due to COVID). We haven't had any record breaking highs, but the number of days when it has been 30c+ has been very unusual. Coupled with last winter which basically never came (usually we get -25c and frozen lakes; that never happened), we'll see what this year brings...

Yeah, "not universally a thing" is what I should have said. I've never had the option to opt in to time-of-use metering anywhere I've lived. :(

To be fair, we've seen a conspiracy of deliberately pulling perfectly working power plants off the grid in the past, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. In the 2000s, Enron did it to financially manipulate the energy market, and it was directly responsible for California's last crisis [0]. It's probably where the idea of such a conspiracy is coming from.

> These blackouts occurred as a result of a poorly designed market system that was manipulated by traders and marketers, as well as from poor state management and regulatory oversight. Subsequently, Enron traders were revealed as intentionally encouraging the removal of power from the market during California's energy crisis by encouraging suppliers to shut down plants to perform unnecessary maintenance, as documented in recordings made at the time.

Of course, I'm not saying that the current blackout is a conspiracy, claiming it to be a fossil-fuel conspiracy takes the paranoia to another level, especially when there's no evidence to back it up (yet). I mentioned it just as a historical curiosity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#California's_deregulatio...

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> “They set it up like this is a historic event,” said Bill Powers, a San Diego engineer who provides expert testimony on utility matters before the state’s regulators. “This should not have triggered blackouts.”

I just searched "Bill Powers", it seems that it's not a pseudonym given by the New York Times, it's real, sounds like a good name to work in the energy industry, haha...

Seriously speaking, apparently this man, Bill Powers, is an activist in consumer protection and energy issues, who often tries to challenge multiple investigations on energy issues before the state’s regulators. I don't think it's wrong, we need people to show up during official investigations to make them more accountable, but it does reduce his credibility if there's no additional evidence to support his latest claim, e.g.

* Energy Experts Question Scale of Blackout (2011)

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/sep/09/energy-experts-questio...

> Energy experts are baffled at the scale of yesterday’s blackout which left five million people without power.

> The blackout here was caused by a transmission failure in Arizona. But power-industry analyst Bill Powers says the grid is set up so that if there’s a sudden loss of supply, energy companies must immediately lower demand through a strategy of controlled blackouts. Powers said a San Diego Gas & Electric executive’s repeated assertion that the blackout was caused by human error in Arizona yesterday falls short.

> “That doesn’t explain why SDG&E didn’t deploy its emergency procedure which is to selectively brownout and blackout portions of San Diego," Powers said. "It looks like something didn’t go right at SDG&E.”

* Is the Porter Ranch blackout warning overblown? Yes, says one expert (2016)

https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2016/04/06/47787/energ...

> But Bill Powers, a frequent expert witness before the California Public Utilities Commission, isn't convinced by officials' claims, calling the blackout warning alarmist. He said that in at least the last decade, SoCal Gas has never hit its firm capacity during the summer peak in the L.A. basin.

* State Senate To Hold Hearings On Phony Blackout Blackmail Report (2016)

https://consumerwatchdog.org/blog/state-senate-hold-hearings...

> A report by engineer Bill Powers for Food and Water Watch found key mispresentations, omissions, and misstatements about demand and capacity. Will engineer Bill Powers will be able to present his opposition report and provide technical insight to the committee on a very technical issue? Both sides should be heard if the hearing is meant to shed light and not simply give energy regulators and So Cal Gas cover.

* What will the next heavy winds bring? Assessing the great power shut-off of 2019 (2019)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-15/pge-powe...

> “The utilities will oppose accelerating the deployment of behind-the-meter solar and batteries, even in areas that are subject to the shut-offs, because it’s just so diametrically opposed to their business model,” said Bill Powers, a San Diego electrical engineering consultant and consumer advocate.