This is off subject, and I do not wish to hijack this thread, but...
The untold truth is that we didn't run out of power last year!
It was all hype in an abortive attempt by our socialist governor Gray-out Doofus to have a government take-over of the power industry. - Check the records, and you will find that there was not one single day where power demand exceeded supply; but in order to have black-outs, 'rolling' blackouts were instituted when reserves reached 3%. - That's the facts, Mam.
Reserves fell to 1.5%. This is only a built in safety margin and not a cause. It is unwise to operate plants at anything too close to 100%. Doing so will result in the failure of at least one plant and cascading blackouts like the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 (caused by relay failure) and the New York City Blackout of 1977 (started by lightning).
Government manipulation of the free market. Electric utilities were only partially deregulated. Utilities still had price controls and limits on where they could buy. Power generators had no limits on prices they could charge utilities and had a captive market. This gave no incentive to develop new plants.
Out of State Power. California had relied on power from neighboring states for a quarter of its energy. With the utilities on the edge of bankruptcy due to state mandated price differences, out of state utilities stopped selling power to California. The federal Department of Energy later forced the out of state utilities to sell, ending the January blackouts.
...When deregulation occurred in 1996, California's major utilities sold many of their power plants to a handful of electricity wholesalers.....Demand for electricity in California has grown by 6 percent per year for the past five years.....Because of the high demand, unregulated wholesale energy prices have risen dramatically in the last year. But the rates charged to customers are still under a freeze. So the utilities buy energy at a deregulated rate from the wholesale suppliers, but have to charge customers a much lower regulated rate.....There have been no major power plants built in California in the past 10 years.....California relies on many out-of-state companies to provide them with electricity. California imports 25 percent of its electricity to meet daily demand...link
...Rolling blackouts are typically used only in severe cases, and are designed to prevent a complete collapse of the state's power system. It signals that the state's operating reserves have fallen below 1.5 percent.....Hospitals, police stations, fire departments and some residents located near these emergency agencies are unaffected by the rolling blackouts.....link
Fixes. Complete the deregulation of the industry by ending government price controls. Breakup the government created semi-monopoly power suppliers into smaller units to increase the number of competitors.