All told, last week’s system-wide storm surge left more than 5,200 Imperial Irrigation District customers without power — some for minutes, some for hours — and caused between $1 million and $1.5 million in damages to two high-voltage transmission lines, according to the most recent IID projections.
An atmospheric river taking aim for California was expected to bring heavy rains to an already-drenched San Diego County overnight Thursday, creating the possibility for flooding, downed trees and big waves for the first week of the New Year. The atmospheric river, which is a term used to describe heavier-than-normal rains that pull moisture from the tropics, inundated Northern and Central California on Wednesday, prompting evacuations, causing power outages and other damage.
The collapse of the power grid in Texas last week, and the cascading infrastructure failures that resulted from it, are stark examples of why a proactive government matters. A complete evaluation will surely show that, like most accidents and failures, many factors played a role, but it is already easy to see that the avoidance of government regulation contributed to the cold-weather chaos.
The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday it was again instrumental in helping California avoid power outages during Labor Day weekend’s statewide extreme heat event. The Navy’s efforts contributed a potential savings of approximately 16 megawatts (MW), keeping the peak load on Sunday under 47,000 MW, and saving enough energy to help prevent rolling blackouts through local neighborhoods and California.
The return of critical electrical shortages last weekend, prompting emergency rolling power cut-offs scattered throughout California, triggered a broad range of extraordinary responses in the ensuing days to bring the statewide grid back from the brink of being overloaded and overwhelmed, officials have revealed.
The Ramona Municipal Water District has received some inquiries from concerned customers regarding the impact of the SDG&E power outages on RMWD’s water system during fire season and COVID.
As many of us in Ramona are aware, RMWD purchases 100 percent of our water from the San Diego County Water Authority and the water is pumped nearly 1,000 feet “up the hill” to Ramona. During the last several years, RMWD has made several important investments in natural gas technology and emergency generators to provide a second source of power for pumping, improve water reliability, reduce pumping costs and protect Ramona in emergencies.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a statewide emergency in order to help California respond to the fires burning across the state amid an extreme heat wave that brought more warnings about power outages on Tuesday.
California avoided another round of rolling blackouts Tuesday as power conservation efforts helped stave off an energy shortage while excessive heat continued to plague the state.
Our electric grid is outdated. For those of us in the renewable sector, this is not a new concept, and it is a national problem, not just one here in California. But unfortunately, the ramifications of an antiquated grid have now been felt by millions of Californians plunged into darkness by these forced power outages. Today, the world is watching to see how California, a historic leader when it comes to environmental initiatives and energy policy, overcomes this potentially recurring problem.
Before the scorching heat descended on Los Angeles last week, the Department of Water and Power assured residents it had “adequate resources” to meet the electrical demands of their air conditioners and refrigerators as temperatures rose. It did, in fact, have enough power to go around, utility officials said Monday, after tens of thousands of people had suffered outages. But officials said that in many neighborhoods, its aging infrastructure could not handle the surging demand for electricity as Angelenos ran their air conditioning day and night.
