POWER August 2021 - 40

COMMENTARY
Why California Is
Scrambling to Meet
Summer Demand
Michelle Bloodworth
t the urging of the California Public Utility Commission
(CPUC) and the California Energy Commission (CEC), on
July 1, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO)
announced its intent to procure additional capacity to meet
this summer's electricity demand. California is one of several
power regions in the U.S. that are at risk of grid emergencies
this summer.
Already in 2021, record-setting heatwaves across the Pacific
Northwest have resulted in power outages for thousands of
electricity customers. Utilities across the West have implemented
rolling blackouts, disconnecting different load centers
for short periods of time to reduce total system electricity demand
and maintain the electric grid's stability when not enough
resources were available to meet the total electric demand.
A Lack of Dispatchable Power
In August 2020, when a major heatwave extended across
much of the West, and wildfires raged in California and neighboring
states, as many as two million California customers
were left without electricity, the first rolling blackouts in the
state since the California Energy Crisis of 2001. Notably, however,
the August 2020 peak demand of 47,121 MW was far below
the state's record-50,270 MW on July 24, 2006-or the
50,116 MW tallied in 2017, when CAISO avoided cutting electric
service to its customers.
The biggest difference between the events of August 2020
and the record peak demand days of 2006 and 2017 is California's
massive shift away from dispatchable fossil fuel power
plants and toward intermittent renewables in the pursuit of
meeting its ambitious decarbonization goals. According to U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, solar and wind
capacity accounted for about 5% of CAISO's generating fleet in
2010, with fossil fuel-fired dispatchable power plants accounting
for roughly 70% of capacity. A decade later, wind and solar
account for almost 30% of total capacity, while the capacity
share of coal and natural gas has fallen to less than 50%.
Solar, in particular, saw tremendous growth over the last
decade, growing from about 1% of CAISO's capacity in 2010
to nearly 20% only 10 years later. Currently, solar generating
resources provide most of the electricity needed in California
during the midday hours, but solar output falls dramatically in
the evening hours when the sun sets but electricity demand
remains high. Without enough dispatchable resources available
to fill the gap left by these solar resources, demand is liable to
exceed available supply.
Power Imports in Tight Supply
Besides relying on dwindling in-state dispatchable fossil generation
to fill the gap left by waning solar output, the California
grid operator has grown more reliant on power imports from
40
A
its neighboring states. Most of these power imports have
come from hydropower and fossil fuel-fired power plants,
both of which are growing increasingly limited in supply.
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon-
which all export power to California-have been setting their
own clean energy goals, and closing fossil plants in the process.
Since 2013, these six states have retired more than
10 GW of fossil fuel generating capacity, with much more to
come. States that were once able to export their excess dispatchable
power generation will soon find themselves in the
same situation as California-desperate for imports.
Exacerbating California's supply woes is the lack of available
electricity from hydropower facilities. The Western U.S.
experienced one of the worst droughts in its history during
the first four months of 2021. In fact, the 2021 water year so
far is the third-driest in 100 years and the driest since 1977.
The nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead, is headed for its
lowest level since it was first filled in the 1930s.
The CPUC and CEC, in a joint letter to CAISO, estimated
that drought conditions have already reduced California's hydro
capacity by 1,000 MW. Nearby states, including Oregon and
Washington, are also experiencing much-lower-than-average
water levels in their reservoirs, reducing available hydropower
generation that California has often relied on in the past to
meet its electricity demand during summer heatwaves.
None of the issues that have California scrambling for additional
generating resources to meet electricity demand this
summer were completely unexpected. While recent heatwaves
in 2020 and 2021 set temperature records across
certain areas, electricity demand remained below previous
record levels. Fossil fuel retirements across the region were
announced years in advance, driven by regulatory pressure
from state agencies on utilities to decrease their reliance on
fossil fuels to achieve politically driven ambitious decarbonization
goals.
However, California regulators have failed to consider all of
the factors that affect resource adequacy, or underestimated
their true impact. To make matters worse, California's only
remaining nuclear plant-the 2,200-MW Diablo Canyon facility-is
slated to be fully retired by 2025, without clear plans
on how to reliably replace this massive amount of capacity.
Poor resource planning in California and much of the West
means that rolling blackouts like the ones Californians experienced
last summer will be a looming risk in the region for the
foreseeable future. Let's make sure that the rest of the country
learns from California's mistakes. ■
-Michelle Bloodworth is president and CEO
of America's Power, the only national trade
organization whose sole mission is to advocate
at the federal and state levels on behalf of
coal-fueled electricity and the coal fleet.
www.powermag.com
POWER | August 2021
http://www.powermag.com
POWER August 2021

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