(Sacramento) A record-breaking heat wave made life miserable across much of the western United States on Tuesday, as California entered its second week of scorching heat that has severely strained the state’s electricity supply with record demand and brought it close to ordering a blackout. . People tried very hard to remain calm.
Posted at 6:32
The California Autonomous System Operator (CAISO), the entity that oversees the state’s electricity grid, has issued a Phase Three alert allowing it to tap into backup power sources. The alarm is one step down the order that provides power outage.
Peak electricity demand reached 52,061 megawatts on Tuesday, Kaeso said, much higher than the previous record of 50,270 megawatts set on July 24, 2006.
As night fell, businesses closed and demand fell.
Earlier, CAISO posted a message on its mobile app calling on customers to reduce their electricity use and warning that “power outages may occur if you don’t take action.”
The Phase 3 alert ended at 8 p.m. on Tuesday with no power outages. CAISO thanked customers, posting a message on Twitter stating that “consumer preservation has played a huge role in protecting the reliability of the power grid.”
However, even without intentional outages, tens of thousands of people have been left without electricity in Northern California.
About 35,700 people lost power in Silicon Valley and the southern and interior parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of the outages are heat-related, Jason King of Pacific Gas & Electric said Tuesday night. It is not known when the power will be restored.
Sacramento, the California state capital, set a record on Tuesday with temperatures rising to 46.7 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record of 45.5 degrees Celsius set in July 1925, according to the National Weather Service.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, temperatures have surpassed historical records in half a dozen cities. In Los Angeles, temperatures were in the mid-30s on Tuesday, prompting the nation’s second-largest school district to limit the use of asphalt and concrete playgrounds.
In neighboring Nevada, Reno saw temperatures reaching 41°C on Tuesday, the hottest day ever in September and breaking the previous record for this date, 35.5°C in 1944.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, at more than 1,219 meters above sea level, temperatures were about 20 degrees higher than normal, reaching 40.5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, the hottest September day on record since 1874 .
Scientists say climate change has made the West hotter and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and increase the frequency and destruction of wildfires. Over the past five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history.
