#POWER TO THE PEOPLE TSHIRT ISO#

But that is something we only do in emergencies.

And what those are is they would basically shut off a portion of a community, say, for one hour or so, and then, they would roll it over to the next area.

#POWER TO THE PEOPLE TSHIRT ISO#

The system went into what they call an Energy Emergency Alert 3, which basically meant that the Cal ISO was instructing the utilities and other entities connected to it that they may progress with rolling blackouts. And just how precarious did it get yesterday? Like, do you know how close we got to rolling blackouts? The previous record was set in 2006 at 50,000.ĬHANG: Wow. And so what it did yesterday was it pushed the all-time peak to a little over 51,000 megawatts. You know, we have a heat wave, a multiday heat wave. Can you just explain how the state even gets to that high level of stress? Is it just high demand? OK, so first of all, I mean, none of us here in California are new to extreme heat, but it's not every day that we get an emergency warning on our cellphones talking about strain on the power grid.

Welcome.ĬHANG: Well, thanks for being with us. He's the executive director of the trade group Independent Energy Producers, and he's a former chair of the state's power grid system. Here to explain more about what's ahead is Jan Smutny-Jones. But the heat is expected to continue for a few more days. So far, it does seem like a lot of Californians are trying to decrease their energy use, and that has helped the state avert rolling blackouts. High demand caused by a historic heat wave nearly broke the power grid here in California yesterday.

Power to the people tshirt