Re: AC electricity in CA

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

At 3:57 PM -0500 1/18/01, Michael Edmiston wrote:

> (2) Leigh says the CA problem is not a "power" problem, but an "energy"
> problem.  Is that really true?  Here I am not worried about whether energy
> is tangible or not.  Rather, I am wondering about the true nature of the
> problem.  Does CA have access to sufficient "electric service" during
> non-peak hours?  In other words, if CA could even-out their electricity
> usage so demand would be steady throughout 24/7/52, would there be as much
> of a problem as there is?  [Note, I do not know the answer to this, but I
> think the answer is they would be better off than they are.]

I think it is probably not true that California has an energy problem.
I think the California electric utilities have an economic problem, one
which I don't fully understand. Because their domestic rates are
regulated, while the price of the energy they buy and distribute is not,
the utilities are losing money. Of course they advocate restraint in
the use of energy, certainly self-serving while they are selling at a
loss. It appears that they can enforce restraint by simply shutting
their users down for short periods.

Our newspapers are full of news about Southern California Edison being
unable to pay its energy bill, a large fraction of which is owed to BC
Hydro. This is principally because we BC Hydro subscribers had been
promised a substantial rebate from the government owned utility based
on anticipated profits, which it now appears will not happen before
SoCalEd pays its bill. There is further word that Pacific Gas & Electric
is in similar trouble, and much of that debt is owed to BC Hydro, too.

> If the problem is peak loading caused by daily or weekly or yearly peak
> demands, then the problem is delivering sufficient "energy" for particular
> durations of time... and this is exactly a power problem isn't it?

If that's so, where's the bottleneck? I don't think there is one, and
I would really like to understand just why these rolling blackouts are
occurring. We pay just under US$0.05 per kWh for residential power,
while my father, in sunny Sacramento, is seeing his savings eaten up
by utility bills, both gas and electric.

Leigh