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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary M. Reed who wrote (45340)	12/8/2000 3:10:41 AM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Respond to of 436258

California declares first Stage III power emergency in history!! latimes.com California's energy nightmare nearly came true Thursday as the strained electricity grid almost ran out of juice, threatening blackouts across the state. Officials declared California's first-ever Stage 3 power emergency at 5:15 p.m. because the transmission grid serving about three-quarters of the state was projected to dip into its last 1.5% of reserves. The emergency order was lifted about two hours later. But the California Independent System Operator, the Folsom-based nonprofit agency that balances supply and demand on the state's 12,500 miles of transmission wires, was able to avoid ordering rolling blackouts across the state. That's because the Stage 3 emergency declaration permitted Cal-ISO to bring back some power that was being exported out of state and allowed two government-controlled power entities to free up enough electricity to help keep the lights on. "There apparently won't be any blackouts," Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis, said late Thursday. "Over the next two weeks, it will be day by day, night by night. It's all hands on deck. We're doing the best we can."<SNIP> <SNIP> In its Stage 3 plan, SCE has grouped customer circuits in such a way that the outages are scattered over a wide area. That way, no single community would be completely blacked out. Only "nonessential" users would be blacked out. Considered essential are customers such as hospitals without backup power, police stations and fire stations. (Homes that are very near essential users, and therefore on the same circuit, also would avoid the blackouts.) The utilities are given as little as 10 minutes to institute the blackouts, which does not allow time to notify customers individually. The only warning they would get would come from the media, particularly news radio stations. Got rolling blackouts? Their GREAT for server farms, from what I understand...<G>