Features

SACRAMENTO — Transmission problems aggravated California’s power crisis on Monday, as authorities warned that homes and businesses in the north of the state might go dark again Tuesday morning. 

Officials at the Independent System Operator, which runs the state power grid, said rolling blackouts could be in place again between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. if substantial electricity were not found overnight. 

“We’re looking everywhere for energy,” said Kellan Fluckiger, the ISO’s chief operating officer. “We’re looking under every rock and bush like we always have been.” 

The electricity shortfall was predicted at 500 megawatts or enough power for half a million homes. 

Problems in the system are beginning to compound, with Pacific Gas & Electric having reached, just three weeks into the year, the annual total hours it can shut off power to its interruptible contract customers, Fluckiger said. 

Those customers are businesses and others that agree to accept outages during times of tight supply in exchange for lower rates. With those customers shut down for several hours daily last week and several hours Monday, PG&E has reached the annual limit of 100 hours. 

Without the ability to cut interruptible customers, Fluckiger said, the system will face a deficit of 300 megawatts from that source. One megawatt is enough to power roughly 1,000 homes. 

In addition, reservoirs at a key hydroelectric plant near Fresno were low on water to turn generators, transmission glitches in Oregon persisted and could take several days to fix, and offers to sell the state electricity were lower than expected. Meanwhile, power usage routinely climbs as the week progresses, Fluckiger said, which is further expected to exacerbate the problem. 

Stage 3 alerts — the most severe and the prelude to rolling blackouts — were ordered to remain in effect until at least midnight Tuesday. 

Even though blackouts were not necessary Monday, the transfer of power between south and north was slowed when the three major conduits were jammed at a bottleneck consisting of just two 500,000-volt lines in central California. 

“The ISO is caught in the middle, caught in a system not improved in three years,” ISO spokesman Patrick Dorinson said. 

Blackouts did occur briefly Sunday for as many as 75,000 customers in Northern California, but they were caused by a spike in power from Oregon, not from shortages. 

Amid this backdrop, lawmakers considered several potential solutions to the crisis, including one under which the state’s two largest utilities — Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric — would donate their hydroelectric plants to the state. 

In exchange, California would begin buying additional power needed for the state through long-term contracts and on the spot market, both of which have led to enormous debts for the utilities. The plan would make California one of the largest owners of hydroelectric power in the nation. 

Another plan, proposed by Assemblyman Fred Keeley, would put the state in the electricity business for up to five years, buying power at low rates and selling it directly to consumers. The Assembly has already approved it. It still needs approval in the state Senate and would have to be signed by the governor. 

Keeley said his plan would buy time for the state’s two largest utilities to restore their credit while lawmakers work on long-term solutions to California’s botched deregulation laws. 

Gov. Gray Davis is reviewing both ideas, but considers the hydroelectric plan more attractive, spokesman Steve Maviglio said. 

Consumer groups, meanwhile, gave Davis’ office more than 5,000 petition signatures from people rejecting what they called a multibillion-dollar bailout for the utilities. 

“We see the cancer spreading, if you will,” said Graham Brownstein of The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco-based group. 

PG&E and SoCal Edison have been on the verge of bankruptcy for weeks. They blame their more than $10 billion in losses on California’s 1996 deregulation law, which bars them from passing skyrocketing wholesale power costs onto consumers. 

The Legislature and governor last week allocated $400 million to buy power over the next several days because the utilities, whose credit ratings have been downgraded to junk bond status, can no longer find wholesalers willing to sell them power on credit. State officials hope the plan will help avoid blackouts while lawmakers work on longer-term solutions. 

The state’s Department of Water Resources, the agency authorized to buy power under the emergency legislation, has spent at least $113.2 million since Thursday, including $35.2 million for Monday’s power needs, said Mike Sicilia, a spokesman for Davis’ office. 

In addition, DWR spent $38 million last week under a state of emergency declared by Davis until the emergency legislation became law, Sicilia said. 

In Washington, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and other Bush administration officials met to discuss the California crisis. There was no immediate word on whether Abraham will extend an emergency order by his predecessor, Bill Richardson, keeping power flowing to California despite concerns about utility solvency. 

That order is due to expire at midnight Tuesday. 

Also Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced the nomination of Curt Hebert, who has argued against federal involvement in the California problems, as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates wholesale power markets. 

On the Net: 

California ISO: www.caiso.com 

Read Keeley’s power-buying legislation, AB1X, at www.leginfo.ca.gov