Posted on 01/02/2003 9:51:00 AM PST by Robert357
Perhaps more interesting is the fact that this occurred on January 1, 2003 at between about 5:30 PM and 6:00 PM. This was the first day that DWR was not the active scheduling party of last resort. This doesn't bode well for California power reliability this coming year.
Somebody in California should be concerned about this kind of repeated reliability crisis that the state is facing. Electric power "brinksmanship" results in blackouts and huge economic harm.
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...market entities declined requested supplemental bids...
Why would they decline to sell their power, hmmmmmm? Maybe because they might not get paid (again).
Hell, they probably still haven't been paid from the last time this happened in 2001!
Yes, indeed hmmmmmm. If the new scheduling system doesn't work out, then the State Budget will need to be larger to support added DWR purchase authority. I am sure that Davis will try hard to make this work (if the market will let him). Hmmmmmmmm
The percentage have ranged all over the place depending on the time, etc. Now WECC for the Cal ISO is just trying to keep it at 7% of load. I remember when utilities did generation expansion planning on the basis of 12 to 18% total reserves and actual spinning reserves of less, but still more than 7% (more like t10 to 12%).
Largest, single unit is still a generally accepted criteria. So you have a very good question regarding some large nuclear plants. It would not surprise me to find out that Cal-ISO has fudged that tradditional requirement as well.
If a Diablo Canyon unit tripped while at full power, CA would go dark instantly. A small earthquake would trip both units. (The envirals made them install that little "safety feature".)
TXU most likely.
Robert is this a typo or were we really almost 50% below the reccomended limit yesterday afternoon?
To me what is absolutely amazing is that 416 MW of Spinning reserves is absolutely "nothing." Just about any single plant going down, almost any kind of a minor transmission event would have casued them to loose all spinning reserves and start loosing frequency and leaning on adjacent systems for support.
To imagine a load control area like a major ISO not being able to come up with a mere 321 MW of spinning generation during a crunch is very very hard to believe and shows how close to the ragged edge that the Cal ISO is operating.
I will say it again, the Cal-ISO is a menace to West Coast electric power reliability if they continue to operate the way they have.
Last week I posted a story about how prices in California spiked higher because of the way the Cal ISO handled the loss of three major transmission lines in the LA area. The ISO is being viewed pretty harshly be a lot of folks in the power industry. This is really bad news for California. The Cal ISO is not maintaining even modest spinning reserve requirements during off peak months.
About every two weeks I post another article or so. It is very common for the Cal-ISO to mess up. That is why I am using the title "Oops I did it again." Just like in the song, there is no real remorse about making a serious mistake.
When I caught the Cal ISO if a flat lie, where they should have by their own stated rules called a Stage 2 Emergency, but only called an Alert, I provided all the facts to an editor and reporter for the SF Chronicle. I also contacted the ISO and laid out the information in a very clear manner and they just said that they get to intepret their standard operating procedures and said that they were too busy to ever answer any of my questions again.
To answer your question, no I don't know any SacBee reporters. I do provide background information to a couple of reporters up in Washington State who report on electric power isues.
The SacBee is one of the few newspapers to have actually published some very damning information about the ISO and the Cal PX.
The above should serve as a few links to past articles I posted based on WECC reports.
Actually, I think that the Sac BEE knows how bad the Cal ISO is. Please see post #16 in the following thread. Thread that talks about who gamed how much out of the market.
There is another source on Cal ISO mischief A Link to a story about the Cal ISO's call to Enron asking them to game the market and Cal Sen Dunn asking the head of the ISO to resign.
Just for reference!
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