California Blackouts Caused Largely by Poor Planning, Preliminary Report Finds

October 2020

KTVU

Severin Borenstein, Faculty Director of the Energy Institute, talks to KTVU about the recent blackouts findings. As a result of the electricity shut down by the California Independent System Operator, it was discovered that some generators sent power out of the state and apparently this is not unusual.

“The peak demand hour, we did OK. The problem was a couple of hours later when the sun set and demand wasn’t maybe quite as high but it was still it was very very high.This isn’t a problem with solar. It’s a problem with planning for when solar is going to be produced…Some of them did not demand enough electricity to be produced the next day as the actually needed. There are generators in the state who have contracts to sell to users out of the state just like generators out of the state have contracts to sell into the state.”

Photo: pixabay.com