- California, which relies on an electrical grid that has trouble keeping up with high demand during summer’s heat waves, once had a brief blackout in 2020 that left hundreds of thousands of households without power.
- To avoid more blackouts, officials in California have encouraged residents to conserve energy and use gas-powered generators.
- This summer, California is unlikely to run short of electricity after winter storms have filled the state’s reservoirs enough to restart its hydroelectric power plants.
California regulators say the state is unlikely to run out of electricity this summer because of a big increase in power storage and a wet winter that filled the state’s reservoirs enough to restart hydroelectric power plants that were dormant during the drought.
The nation’s most populous state normally has more than enough electricity to power the homes and businesses of more than 39 million people. But the electrical grid has trouble when it gets really hot and everyone turns on their air conditioners at the same time.
It got so hot in August 2020 that California’s power grid was overwhelmed, prompting the state’s three largest utility companies to shut off electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes for a few hours over two consecutive days. Similar heat waves in 2021 and 2022 pushed the state to the brink again. State officials avoided blackouts by encouraging people to conserve energy and tapping some emergency gas-powered generators.
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The state’s electrical grid was strained in part because of a severe drought that left reservoirs at dangerously low levels, leaving little water available to pass through hydroelectric power plants. The water level in Lake Oroville got so low in 2021 state officials had to shut down a hydroelectric power plant that was capable of powering 80,000 homes.
That won’t be a problem this year after winter storms dumped massive…
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