Blackouts a distinct possibility
Likelihood increases
if conservation efforts don’t work
By Sharon Makokian
Acorn Staff Writer

With California’s current energy crunch, how likely are we to have rolling blackouts in this area? Very likely, according to Southern California Edison (SCE) regional manager Rudy Gonzales.

"It’s very likely we’ll have rolling blackouts, particularly this summer," he said, noting that the state has recently had 17 consecutive days of stage three emergencies (as of last Thursday)—in which the operation reserves fell below 1.5 percent.

"The demand (for electricity) cannot exceed (power) generation," he said. "If we operate at less than 1.5 percent and a generation unit at any power plant in the region went off line, it could jeopardize the entire state."

Gonzales said that predicting when and where a rolling blackout will occur is difficult because of many variables, one of which is how much the customers are conserving their energy use.

"We are preaching conservation. Conservation is the only thing that is going to get us through this summer," he said.

The need for rotating blackouts is declared by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), a separate agency from the power companies.

Under this situation, the Cal-ISO would typically order such companies as SCE to reduce its electrical usage immediately by a certain number of megawatts (the basic unit for measuring power generation). At that time, SCE would begin controlled, rotating blackouts throughout the region.

Only part of a city would have interrupted service, said Gonzales, explaining that there are 76 customer groups within the service territory. Most likely a group from one city would be combined with another, which could be far away from the primary blackout area.

"It wouldn’t be wise to take electricity out in an entire community. We’d take a small section of Agoura Hills, Antelope Valley and Ventura, for example, so that no section is overly impacted," he said.

Once a neighborhood has experienced a blackout, it’s placed at the bottom of the rotation list for future outages, he said.

Exempt from blackouts are public safety agencies, such as police and fire departments, military bases and hospitals with at least 100 beds (which would include Las Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks).

However, individuals who require electricity to run medical equipment at home are not exempt.

"We’ve sent out letters to medical baseline customers to notify them of the (blackout) potential … and advised them to make arrangements to provide a contingency plan, such as a battery backup or calling someone to take the patient to an area that has electricity ... An hour will not pose a serious threat to health or well-being," he said.

A controlled outage could occur anytime, although it would usually happen during peak usage times, usually between 4 and 7 p.m.

In the case of a blackout, SCE advises customers to turn off all appliances, machinery and equipment in use when the power goes off, and leave one light on to indicate when the power returns. This will prevent injuries that could occur if machinery were to suddenly restart and prevent circuits from overloading when the electricity comes back, they said.

Last Thursday, Gov. Gray Davis signed a $10 billion bill into law that allows the state to sign long-term contracts and to purchase power and sell it to SCE customers, which should provide some relief to the situation. But it’s not without cost. To encourage conservation, residential customers who use 30 percent more energy than a specified baseline would be charged higher rates.

SCE has also filed for a 30 percent price increase with the California Utilities Commission, according to Gonzales. This rate hike would be above the increase that began Jan. 4, which raised residential rates by about 9 percent and businesses by 7 to 15 percent.

The state has plans for additional generation to come on line over the next three years, but it won’t be in place for this year’s summer crunch, said Gonzales.

"We can anticipate shortages throughout the summer, particularly if it is a warm summer," he reiterated.

Gonzales encouraged people to call SCE for conservation brochures or to visit their Website at www.SCE.com , which offers many links on ways to save energy and money, he said. Customers can do an in-home energy survey on the computer, over the phone, through the mail, or they can even ask for a free in-home auditor.

"We’re hoping that customers take advantage of that. In order to get through the summer, it will take everybody doing a little more (conservation), said Gonzales.

Cal-ISO also has a Website that monitors and predicts daily usage and peak hours. That site is www.caiso.com.