SAN FRANCISCO — California’s power grid operators are keeping an eye on the thermometer Tuesday after avoiding highly anticipated rolling blackouts a day earlier as an ongoing heat wave stresses the electrical system. The California Independent System Operator warned Monday that as many as 3.3 million homes and businesses would...
1 Million California Homes, Businesses Could Lose Power As Electricity Demand Rises
Up to 1 million homes and businesses across California are expected to lose power Monday evening as part of rolling blackouts to ease pressure on the state's electric grid as a dayslong heat wave engulfing the West Coast creates an energy shortage. The California Independent System Operator said utility companies...
Newsom Demands Probe of Weekend Power Blackouts
An irate Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency proclamation allowing some energy users and utilities to tap backup energy sources amid the state's days-long heatwave that has prompted rolling blackouts affecting hundreds of thousands of households. Newsom also sent a letter demanding that the state energy commission, state public utilities...
Electricity Costs Could Tumble For Fresno Unified, State Center
Fresno Unified School District and State Center Community College District could soon see big savings on their annual electricity bills — as much as $1.5 million for Fresno Unified and $340,000 for State Center. Both are considering contracts with Constellation NewEnergy Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, to buy electricity that...
CEO says PG&E Got Complacent About Power Outages
SACRAMENTO — The head of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. has told a California legislative committee that the utility became complacent about power shutdowns after successfully completing a few smaller ones. Utility CEO Bill Johnson made the comments Monday in testimony before a California legislative committee that also detailed a...
Walters: Newsom Now Owns the Wildfire and PG&E Crisis
The careers of political executives — presidents, governors and big-city mayors — are often defined, fairly or not, by how they respond to crises. Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, John Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis and Jimmy Carter and the Iranian hostage...
California Regulator Sanctions Utility Over Power Outages
SAN FRANCISCO — California's top utility regulator blasted Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday for what she called "failures in execution" during the largest planned power outage in state history to avoid wildfires that she said, "created an unacceptable situation that should never be repeated." The agency ordered a series of corrective...
1.5 Million Northern Californians in the Dark, Most Now for 2nd Day
SONOMA — More than 1.5 million people in Northern California were in the dark Thursday, most for a second day, after PG&E cut off electricity to more customers to prevent wind-fueled wildfires amid dry weather and strong winds sweeping through the region. Pacific Gas and Electric cut power to more...
How Much Could PG&E’s Rates Rise? What You Need to Know.
Pacific Gas and Electric’s customers were warned about the cost of massive wildfires that it may have sparked. Even before California’s largest utility filed bankruptcy proceedings at the start of the year, lawyers, policymakers and consumer advocates all cautioned that the company’s liabilities in those fires would, one way or another, hit...
Walters: Another Dicey Utility Overhaul
Californians should always be skeptical when their politicians overhaul the state’s electrical utility system while promising more efficient, less polluting, and reasonably priced service. Californians get their juice from a mélange of “investor-owned” and municipally operated utilities. Inevitably, micromanagement of such a complex system via legislation and regulatory agencies becomes...