In your initial post you stated "small energy traders popping up just like the small airlines during airline deregulation."
Then you say it was a good analogy because "traders of all kind in many industries deal in all sorts of commodities and services without being owners or operaters."
That was my point. The energy traders are not (necessarily) owners/operators of generating facilities the way in which the small arilines were owners/operators of actual planes. Apples to Oranges. The analogy doesn't work.
This one does:
small airlines with planes=independent power generators with plants
energy traders=ticket brokers
Much of the info re: peculiar plant shutdowns was in the first article I posted to you:
nctimes.com
I found this revealing:
This fall, the outage problem exploded into a crisis that has threatened the entire West.
Plant shutdowns are traditionally planned for periods of low demand, which in California's case is any time but summer. This autumn was no different, with 3,500 to 5,000 megawatts pulled off-line on any given day with the blessing of the system operator.
By mid-November, however, generators had pulled an additional 7,000 megawatts off-line ---- removing 46 percent of the state's independently owned capacity. The shutdowns added up to more than a third of the state's 33,000 megawatt demand for power.
The shortage sent prices soaring throughout the West, reaching $5,000 per megawatt hour in Oregon, where fall demand for electric heating traditionally causes the region to import power at night from California.
and:
The rate of power plant outages during much of the last month was the highest in anyone's memory.
Officials of San Diego Gas & Electric Co. say that when the utility was running some of the same power plants, outage rates averaged 10 percent to 15 percent of total capacity. Old-timers at the Western Systems Coordinating Council say the typical rate for the entire West has never exceeded 15 percent ---- even during earthquakes, blackouts and other disasters.
Even worse, the unplanned shutdowns persisted for four weeks. Federal investigators found that during the summer the average power plant problem was fixed in less than one day.
this was good:
State officials were skeptical.
On Dec. 5, the Public Utilities Commission and the ISO launched a series of surprise inspections to see if plants were really being repaired. Results of those inspections have not been disclosed.
Some of the power plants returned to service shortly after the system operator lifted a price cap of $250 per megawatt hour that had been in place since July.
Returned to service after the price cap lifted...Hmmm
It all sounds like an engineered shortage to me.
Perhaps true energy shortages in CA don't exist (at least not yet anyway.)
Just another myth. |
