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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 10:15:17 -0600 From: "Tracey Bradley" <tbradley@bracepatt.com< To: "Aryeh Fishman" <afishman@bracepatt.com<, "Andrea Settanni" <asettanni@bracepatt.com<, "Charles Ingebretson" <cingebretson@bracepatt.com<, "Charles Shoneman" <cshoneman@bracepatt.com<, "Deanna King" <dking@bracepatt.com<, "Jeffrey Watkiss" <dwatkiss@bracepatt.com<, "Gene Godley" <ggodley@bracepatt.com<, "Kimberly Curry" <kcurry@bracepatt.com<, "Michael Pate" <mpate@bracepatt.com<, "Paul Fox" <pfox@bracepatt.com<, "Ronald Carroll" <rcarroll@bracepatt.com< Subject: California faces Tuesday blackouts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline FYI California faces Tuesday blackouts Power shortage continues a day after rolling outages By Myra P. Saefong, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 10:47 AM ET Mar 20, 2001 FOLSOM, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- California's electricity grid operator said rolling blackouts could continue Tuesday as idled generating plants and the lack of payments to small suppliers prompted a drop in operating reserves to critically low levels. "We are projecting the possibility of outages sometime between 10 o'clock (Pacific time) this morning and 8 o'clock this evening," Jim Detmers, vice president of operations at the California Independent System Operator, said at a Tuesday morning conference call. Detmers said that two large generation units that had been expected to be back online by Tuesday morning, failed to be repaired on time. The Cal ISO now expects one unit to return by noon Tuesday, with the other coming back online at midnight. Additionally, power imports are down by 800 megawatts compared to Monday, Detmers said, citing exhausted water resources. The tight power condition "will exist today and may even exist into tomorrow as well," he said. "A lot depends on what all of California does to conserve energy." As of Tuesday morning, the state had more than 12,000 megawatts of planned and forced generation unit outages. Power levels from small generators remain "extremely low" with only about 3,000 megawatts of the total 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts of electricity in operation. The Cal ISO has said that the small generators are suffering from "financial concerns and an inability to purchase fuel to run the plants." California suffered 32-straight days at its highest power alert earlier this year in part due to the inability of the state's utilities' to purchase enough power for their customers. Southern California Edison (EIX: news, msgs, alerts) and another of California's big utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG: news, msgs, alerts) , have combined debts of more than $13 billion from buying wholesale power on the open market that they must supply to customers at rates capped by state regulators. See related story. Blackouts hit electric customers around the state on Monday, from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf to Beverly Hills. Bay Area media reported Cisco Systems was forced to stop work at one of its Silicon Valley plants. The blackouts began at noon Monday and continued until about 8 or 9 p.m. Power for most customers was interrupted for only about 60 to 90 minutes. The Cal ISO will reassess the power situation and hold a conference call at 10:30 a.m. Pacific time. Myra P. Saefong is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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