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The California ISO has very limited ability to schedule power sufficient to control the amount of reserves it carries. About every couple of weeks it violates national spinning reserve requirements. This means that for these periods of time, the Cal ISO is leaning on interconnected electric systems and increasing the potential for blackouts. There are clear procedures that require a load control area that is deficient in reserves to turn off interruptible load and if sufficient reserves as a function of load are not maintained to shed additional load (aka blackouts). This is the lowest load season for the California ISO, if they cannot keep things in check, then heaven help California during the coming summer.

I certainly hope that FERC dramatically changes the leadership and the culture of this organization. The Cal ISO appears to have little concern regarding reliability based on repetitive actions or failures on its part.

As a second aside, I wonder how much of the PG&E outages were due to deferred tree trimming and deferred maintenance that made a the results of a bad storm even worse. I expect this from an organization in Bankruptcy, but it is hard on the customers.

My final point is that there are times of the year when a loss of imported power from the PNW at the Malin Substation to Round Mountain could cause major blackouts in California. Malin-Round Mountain is the AC intertie on the California Oregon Boarder. If this ever happens at one of those times that California does not have enough spinning reserves very large parts of the state could go black. Californians may not know it but they are on the ragged edge of disaster.

I thought I would share with some folks how the California ISO preformed over the weekend (not well.)

I hope that the federal court case where FERC is trying to change the leadership of the California ISO will conform them to a more typical ISO structure soon. The Gov. Davis handpicked folks leading the California ISO are not doing a good job.

If the ISO doesn't change soon, California could be in for some very dark times (pun intended).

"Californians may not know it but they are on the ragged edge of disaster."

So true!!!

I was awakened at 4:AM today with Mrs. Wasp stumblin round in the dark, yellin "Waspman!" "Git yer differential outa that danged bed and crank up that generator... NOW!" "Hurry up, I cain't see a danged thing, you slacker... giddy up!"

So I did. First I had to find the gas can (in the dark as the rechargeable D cells hadn't kept their charge) and then unscrew the fuel shut-off. Then I started chokin an crankin. As soon as she started, I was off to the breaker box to flip off the main and all the little breakers except the dryer breaker. Then into the garage to move the dryer out to unplug it and plug my romex cable to the generator in, instead. Finally, I plugged the romex into the generator's 220 and headed back to the breaker box to turn on the well pump so I could flush my pots cause by now... I HAD TO GO!!! BAD!!!

So anyway, now you are implying that these bastard bureaucrats are playin fast and loose with their responsibilities for proper reserves. If you'd have told me that this morning, before the crack of dawn, as I was grunting to shove that danged dryer almost giving myself a pant load... I'da probably gone postal!!!

Anaways... We had that noisy thing on from 5:Am till about 1:45 pm today and I was pretty pist the whole time cause it took about the same amount of time to dry out and warm up. The radio said everything south of I-80 on the western slope was out and now it may not have been storm related after all??? Are you tryin ta give the Waspman a stroke???

As a second aside, I wonder how much of the PG&E outages were due to deferred tree trimming and deferred maintenance that made a the results of a bad storm even worse.

I have seen no evidence of this. In fact, things have improved over the last few years. If anything, stupid environmental rules remain the biggest problem governing tree trimming.

About that I could go on at length.

...heaven help California during the coming summer.

That must be why Il Duce Davis refuses to relinquish his emergency powers, wouldn't you guess? He been told what the situation is.

So you're saying that Davis is avoiding legal blackouts by breaking federal regs?

I also understand you to say that when Davis violates the regs and operates without adequate spinning reserves he risks a cascade effect in the whole northwest?

Is that about it?