Caiso Outlook For California Power, 11 July 2002

Caiso ^ | 11 JULY 2002 | Caiso

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the Caiso stituation graph for today, 11 July 2002:

[Grampa Dave]

Stay cool! Here we go again!

[Miss Marple]

What is the purple line? Is that yesterday's curve?

[Miss Marple]

Never mind; I just figured out it is the red and blue lines intersecting! Need more coffee!

[Grampa Dave]

Drudge Headline:

May get over 134 degrees in California today: (USA TODAY WEATHER REPORT)

Of course now that you read the article, you now know that that 134 might be in Death Valley. :)

[Grampa Dave]

You sound like me. Coffee is not an addiction, it is a vital basic food element with me each morning.

[w1andsodidwe]

My post from yesterday:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/714099/posts

It gets hot every year at this time. Don't know why it is suddenly news. Could it be that the global warming crowd is winning.

Also, it should be noted that the humidity here yesterday was about 25%. High fire danger, but does make the heat a lot more comfortable. I was raised in Iowa, and believe me, 109 here is more comfortable than 85 with 75% humidity.

[daviddennis]

I've noticed in the last few graphs that power availability is higher in the very early morning than the key afternoon period, where it's actually needed.

For example, look at the graph Grandpa Dave provided - we have plenty of power between 4 and 5 am, but then availability drops at 6 and doesn't really recover until 5:15 or so.

If it weren't for this drop, it would seem that we would not have a power crisis, so I have to ask what's behind what looks like a daily pattern - why couldn't we simply produce more power in the afternoon?

Does this have to do with the patterns affecting wind, geothermal or solar power? I didn't think we used enough of those sources to matter, but perhaps I was wrong.

(Note that this is power availability I'm talking about (the green graph), not power use (the red and blue graphs). The reasons for power use having the pattern it does appear to be self-explanatory - a lot of people are turning on their air conditioners and other equipment during the day, and heat loads peak in mid-afternoon).

Thoughts?

D

[Grampa Dave]

This is the link to the basic site for Caiso to go to other data: (Caiso System Site)

[Grampa Dave]

The temp forecasts by Caiso: (Caiso Temp Forecasts)

They are predicting cooler weather in many areas since I first went on at about 6 am. Redding and some other hot areas have 6 degree lower predicted highs.

[bvw]

Might be the affect of imported power from the time zones east and earlier.

[Robert357]

Does this have to do with the patterns affecting wind, geothermal or solar power?

That is not the reason.

There are four potential reasons, and I don't know which it is.

(1)Places like Arizona, when they sell power to California don't need as much themselves in the morning, so they are willing to sell more to California in the morning.

(2)If you look at another post I made of the dynamic limits on the California Oregon Intertie capacity you will see that it varies by several hundred MW's of capacity. Generally the hotter it is out side the less capacity a transmission line or a major power transformer has. (It has to do with heat transfer out of the device into the air.) Also the dynamic transmission capacity could be linked to PNW loads as well and the load flow on the PNW transmission system (more likely explaination). The bottom line is that transmission capacity for imported power into California can be a function of temperature and/or load, which both roughly correlate to time of day.

(3)Most power plants produce more power when it is cold outside. A Combustion turbine (CT) is a mass-flow machine and hence the colder the more massive the air the more power. Some CT's actually have air conditioning units to chill the air that goes into them. Not real efficient but sometimes cost effective. Other thermal plants that use cooling towers, can operate at higher power levels when they can get colder recirculating water back from the cooling tower and pull a larger vacuum in their turbine condensing section. Thermo dynamics. Again, the temperature of the day is roughly correlated to the time of the day.

(4) The ISO could line up a lot of power and then decide it doesn't want to pay for it all day long and releases it during the course of the day, trying to figure out just the minimum amount they need (and guessing wrong declares and emergency). If this happened the power would find a home somewhere else and if the price got high enough (remember it is still capped) it would find a way back to California. This happened a lot in 2000 and 2001.

Again, I am not sure what the real reason is, but it surely isn't wind paterns or variability at solar power stations.

[Robert357]

I am reminded of a line from a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie.

DO YOU FEEL LUCKY? WELL DO YA?

I wonder if that thought is going throught the Davis for Governor election committee and volunteers? Ahhhh. I have to be out in the field today visiting client sites so I won't be in the office to follow what is happening until later this afternoon. Have fun guys!

[Grampa Dave]

You asked the right people re the power availibility.

Re the so called alternative power sources. There really ain't any. Alternative Energy sources are the code words of the Envirals that we are going to severely limit your life style for our agendas. We will cover a lot of those agendas under the guise of Alternative Energy Sources.

Alternative Energy is the Sugar Plum Myth that the Enviral Whackos have sold us as they stopped California from building any new plants basically since MoonBeam became governor. There are no real alternatives, just their Bravo Sierra saying that there are Alternative Energy Sources.

My way to help on the supply curve is simple. Every Enviral Whacko office building, home, and businesses if they have any, could no longer receive power from PG&E and any other real power source. So just drop all power going to card carrying whacksos and those who have donated to Club Sierra the past 10 years. If you love Club Sierra and donate to them, you have to get your energy from Club Sierra and its vast amounts of Alternative Energy Supplies.

Last but not least the power source that saved our bacon last year and this year is the terrible Nuclear Energy. All who hate Nuclear Energy should be forced to cut down about 10% of their power useage each day. If they run over 90% over last year, their power gets cut off.

I'm the same way with people who hate Big Oil. Good, then all Big Oil haters can buy their gasoline and oil from Club Sierra. That would help the rest of us. In the mean time all who hate Big Oil should have to bike or walk to where ever they need to go until we have some new refineries and MTBE out of our gasoline.

[Grampa Dave]

What is news is simple.

Thanks to the envirals, Moonbeam and his able assistant, Igor Davis (now our inept governor), we stopped building new power plants during Moonbeam's back to the 1800's Era of Limits, when he was our inept governor.

In the meantime, the Rats have opened the immigration doors and the illegal alien doors to get more voters.

Each new immigrant and each new illegal alien uses electricity directly and indirectly the minute they come into California.

So the supply curve/capability has gone down each day/week/month while the Demand Curve has increased each day/week/month/year since Moonbeam and his Birkenstocks played at being our governor.

In 2000, this started to catch up, and California had a lot of rolling blackouts. In early 2001, it became really severe with demand outstripping the supply curve.

It was unseasonably cool last summer that reduced demand.

The other demand reducer was the failure of many businesses, the reduction of business hours and many businesses leaving California in 2001. Each business that left or operated on less hours meant less demand for electricity in last summer's cooler than normal temps.

Now, we are have some normal and some record highs. We have really no more power production, and the demand curve is overwhelming the suppply capability.

If we didn't import electricity each day from the Pacific NW and Arizona, we would be like a third world country and forced to have a lot of blackouts from noon to 6 pm each day.

This is very serious and very new worthy!

This is what is happening and why this is news. Blackouts are very serious and can kill people or hurt them. Businesses in Kali's recession can be severely hurt.

[Grampa Dave]

It looks like the weather might be on Davis's side today and tomorrow. There are no severe warnings re very hot temps as there were yesterday by 6 am. It is supposed to be cooler today and tomorrow.

[NorseWood]

There are high clouds here in southern California this morning, which might also cut down on the power load. Greyout Davis lucked out this time, but there are a lots of days left this summer.

[NormsRevenge]

Clint EastWood would have made a helluva President. He's a damn good golfer and he can take charge when necessary.

It's nice to see someone in the Forum will be "working" today;-! Be CareFul Out There!

[Grampa Dave]

Clouds are predicted for tonight and tomorrow up here in the Wine Country.

Davis escaped getting whacked by his own system of Russian Roulette.

However, the summer has just started as you noted.

When it really gets hot in the Pacific NW, and water flows are down as normal in August. He will have August and September to escape his own bullets! May several of his own bullets strike his feet several times.

[B-bone]

Coffee is not an addiction, it is a vital basic food element

Please allow me to correct you misconception.

Coffee is not an addiction, it is the vital basic food element

[tubebender]

WE missed setting a record high by 2 degrees here in Eureka yesterday. It got all the way up to 67 against a record 69 set in 1945.