Re: CA Power

[Doug Barton <DougB () DougBarton net>]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Gary E. Miller wrote:

> Yo Martin!
>
> If there is plenty of power in CA then howcum there was a "stage 2" alert
> yesterday and a "market alert today"?  Today's "projected demand" equaled
> "available resources" today  If demand played out as expected there
> would have been big trouble in CA today.

I hesitate to respond to this, but the power problems are discussed often
enough here that it's almost "on topic..."

Last summer, on one of the rolling blackout days, one of our intrepid news
stations in San Diego went down to interview one of our independent power
plant operators. They were standing next to an idle generating plant, and
the interview went something like this:

Reporter: So, how many generators do you have at this plant?
Operator: 3
R: How many do you have operating today?
O: Just one.
R: REALLY? But we had rolling blackouts all through San Diego County
today, why aren't you operating all 3 generators?
O: Because Cal-ISO told me to turn off #2, and not to turn #3 on at all.

They went on to talk about all sorts of numbers, that basically added up
to just one of those generators could have supplied the difference between
supply and demand that day. They never did get a straight answer from
Cal-ISO about why they requested that operator to turn his generator(s)
off, but the obvious implication was that something was rotten in
Denm^WCalifornia.

Doug