Despite California's loss of population it still struggles to meet power demands

 Washington Examiner:

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California’s grid has been strained due to high heat and severe drought conditions, which drive up its demand for power, largely due to heightened air conditioner use, and limit its ability to produce hydroelectric power.

"On a supply side, we are challenged by these extremes, and on the demand side, not surprisingly, people are turning up the AC," Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, told reporters yesterday. "People are understandably trying to escape the heat, so we have to address that twin challenge anew."

The grid is most strained between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., when demand is still high but solar power generation decreases. To offset that imbalance, grid operators can call for consumers to conserve electricity voluntarily via its Flex Alert program, which asks residents to turn up their thermostats to at least 78 degrees and to avoid charging electric vehicles or using other large appliances during peak hours of demand.

But some experts said they do not think the alert system provides enough incentive for consumers to reduce demand.

“I am not a believer that we should be doing this through voluntary pleading,” Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a member of the California ISO Board of Governors, said in an interview. “I think we should have a price system that actually lowers the price most of the time and then raises the price when the system is tight because that would give people the right incentives to conserve power when the system is really tight.”

“Demand response” payments, or payments to customers who temporarily curb their consumption at times of peak demand, are also gaining more traction.

SUPPLY IS CONSTRAINED

Hydropower:

The historic drought conditions and record-low reservoir levels have reduced the state’s ability to generate hydropower by 48%. In-state hydroelectric power fell last year to just 7% of California's utility-scale net generation, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, down from nearly 21% in 2017.

That’s not the only effect of heat and drought on the supply of energy. They also exacerbate the risk of wildfires, which can damage transmission infrastructure and can prompt operators to shut off power.

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Interstate imports are key for California, which receives roughly 25% of its electricity from other Western states, Borenstein, also the faculty director at Haas’s Energy Institute, said in an interview.

But the reliability of these imports has gone down a bit in recent years, due in part to states phasing out coal-fired power plants in the West, as well as the rise of heat waves and drought that have limited their ability to pass along excess resources.

California imports energy from five Western states: Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. But these states are also grappling with the same heat and drought conditions as California and have taken many of their own fossil fuel-powered plants offline. Since 2013, these states retired more than 10 gigawatts of fossil fuel generating capacity, leaving them with little excess resources to sell to California.

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The reduction of fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants was a serious mistake.  It is clear that green energy like wind and solar is not enough to deal with extreme weather situations.  This is just another example of how poorly run California has been in recent years.  

BTW, Texas has also suffered from extreme weather with its dependency on wind and to a lesser extent solar. These Big Green projects are supplemental energy sources that are less dependable.