Rolling blackouts a reality here, elsewhere in Southland
By Sharon Makokian
Acorn Staff Writer

Warm weather and a shortage of power generation caused rolling blackouts that had been predicted by electric companies earlier this year. On Monday, blackouts occurred in parts of Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park, and were expected to continue into the week, according to Southern California Edison (SCE) regional manager Rudy Gonzales.

The first blackout left Agoura Hills City Hall in the dark, said City Manager Dave Adams. It began at 12:38 p.m. and lasted the prescribed period of one hour.

"With no advance warning from Edison, our city hall went down," he said. Adams said that all electricity in the building went off, but the phones stayed on by using a backup energy system. The blackout area went from Kanan Road to Reyes Adobe Road, from the 101 Freeway south to the mountains, he said.

While Adams received no advance warning, the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station did and dispatched several units to direct traffic, said Dep. Jeff Price.

"Edison called ahead of time. (Traffic officers) were standing by in the major intersections, anticipating the power going out," said Price. Traffic was slow, but there were no accidents, he said.

"The biggest concern is with traffic," said Adams, who was pleased with the way that the police handled the blackout, which darkened half of the traffic signals on the Kanan Road/101Freeway interchange.

"The only thing that could’ve gone better is if we had notification. They called us a few minutes after it started," said Adams.

Now, that area of Agoura Hills (Zone 3) will go to the bottom of the list for future blackouts, which are predicted for the summer.

"If we’re already having blackouts at 80 degrees, imagine what it’s going to be like (in the summer)," he said.

The Agoura Hills blackout caused 126 customers to lose power, according to Gonzales. Two other blackouts followed, first in Thousand Oaks, near the 101 Freeway and Hampshire Road, and then in Newbury Park, west of Rancho Conejo.

Unlike the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, the Ventura County Police Department’s East Valley Station didn’t dispatch deputies to control traffic in Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park, said Dep. Jeff Lawrence.

"We don’t send out (squad) cars for power outages … East Valley has a policy about that, the reason being is that people should know from the vehicle code that every outage (should be treated as) a (four-way) stop sign," he said.

The blackouts occur when the state hits a stage three alert in which the operation reserves fall below 1.5 percent, said Gonzales. The need for rotating blackouts is determined by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), a separate agency from the power companies.

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

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, he said.

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

"Predictions are pretty consistent that there’s not going to be enough power generation this summer to keep up with demand," said Gonzales. "I fully expect (rolling blackouts) as summer comes, with increased demand on the system from air conditioning use."

Gonzales urges everyone to conserve electricity as much as possible, turning lights off when leaving a room and keeping the air conditioning set at 79 degrees during the day.

He also encourages 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, and also gives conservation tips and other useful information. That site is at www.caiso.com