A swath of Marin County lost electricity on Friday evening as the state power grid was strained by extreme heat.
The cluster of small outages spanned from the San Rafael shoreline into the Fairfax area, and from southern San Rafael into Terra Linda, according to Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
The larger outages included 948 meters in the Peacock Gap and China Camp areas and 610 meters in Terra Linda.
Later Friday, some 4,600 meters had no service in parts of San Rafael, Kentfield, Larkspur and Ross.
The outages happened as he California Independent System Operator (California ISO), which manages the power grid, declared an emergency shortly after 6:30 p.m. and directed utilities around the state to shed their power loads.
Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, tweeted that it would turn off power to about 200,000 to 250,000 customers in rotating outages for about an hour at a time until around 11 p.m. Other utilities were told to do the same.
“Extreme heat is really the driver behind this,” said Anne Gonzales, spokeswoman for the power grid operator.
The move came as temperatures around the state hit triple digits in many areas, and air conditioning use soared.
Temperatures were 10 to 20 degrees above normal in some areas, Gonzales said.
In addition, cloudy weather from the remnants of a tropical weather system reduced power generation from solar plants, she said.
The state tried to prepare for the expected rise in electricity use by urging conservation and trying to buy more power but a high-pressure system building over Western states meant there was less available.
Temperatures and energy use were expected to drop during the evening, and California ISO expected the outages to end at midnight.
The heat wave is expected to last through next week and the power grid operator will decide whether to continue the rolling outages on a day-to-day basis, Gonzales said.
“We’re dealing with weather, clouds, wildfires … these are quickly evolving situations, quickly changing,” Gonzales said.
The last time the state ordered rolling outages was during an energy crisis in 2011. Blackouts occurred several times from January to May, including one that affected more than 1.5 million customers in March. The cause was a combination of energy shortages and market manipulation by energy wholesalers, infamously including Enron Corp., that drove up prices by withholding supplies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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August 15, 2020 at 10:45AM
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Marin areas lose electricity amid statewide power strain - Marin Independent Journal
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