California utility company urges conservation during heat wave
California utility company Pacific Gas and Electric said that a heat wave starting June 16 means consumers need to conserve energy to avoid power outages.
Temperatures on the coast near San Fransisco are only expected to reach the mid-70s Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), but inland California can expect temperatures in the triple-digits. The temperature in San Ramon, about 35 miles inland from San Fransisco, is forecast to reach 94 on June 16 and 103 the next day.
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Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) called on its customers to set their thermostats to 78 or higher, after cooling residences to lower temperatures in the morning. Fans are encouraged over air conditioning and the utility reminded people to limit the use of energy-intensive appliances.
“Limit the opening of refrigerators, which is a major user of electricity in most homes,” the company said. “The average refrigerator is opened 33 times a day.”
PG&E’s call followed similar pleas from a utility regulator in Texas. Barely four months removed from Winter Storm Uri’s record cold and its impact on the state’s power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) asked residents on June 14 to conserve power for the remainder of the week, as an “unusually high” number of forced generation outages strained the grid.
Woody Rickerson, ERCOT’s vice president for grid planning and operations, said generator owners have reported about 11,000 MW of generation is on forced outage for repairs. About 8,000 MW of that is thermal – natural gas, oil or coal – while the rest is from intermittent sources, generally wind or solar.
The state grid operator in California said in a heat advisory last week that no outages or power disruptions were anticipated during the period of extreme heat. The National Weather Service expects temperatures in San Ramon to cool off to the lower 80s by the beginning of next week.