California needs to add storage before dropping gas fleet if it wants to avoid outages

摘要

California needs to add more storage to its grid to prevent shortages during the post-sunset, peak-demand hours after less than 200 MW of storage energy was available this summer when rotating outages occurred for the first time in nearly 20 years. Power industry experts discussed California’s summer outage situation and future during the Dec. 2 “Keeping the Light on in California” webinar hosted by Power Markets Today. “The future of California keeping its lights on is intimately entwined with the rest of the West keeping their lights on,” Johnny Casana, Pattern Energy senior manager of US political and regulatory affairs, said during the webinar. The outages were not caused by the state’s clean power initiatives, but rather a variety of factors, said Arne Olson, senior partner at Energy & Environmental Economics.