STAGE 3 EMERGENCY NOTICE [200100916]

The California Independent System Operator is implementing Stage 3 of the Electrical Emergency Plan for the period 03/20/2001 09:17 through 03/20/2001 22:00.

The CAISO is continuing to request additional Supplemental Energy bids during this period. The Plan has been implemented for the following reason(s):

Loss of Generation; Loss of Transmission;Insufficient Resources

Participating Transmission Owners are to notify the Utility Distribution Companies within their operational areas.

Stage 3: Operating reserves are currently, or forecast to be, below 1-1/2%. The UDC will implement their electrical emergency plan and/or other load dropping to effect involuntary firm demand reductions, in addition to ALL Interruptible Service reductions AS DIRECTED BY THE CAISO.

This message is from Market Operations at the California ISO.

Notice issued at: 03/20/2001 09:20

The system conditions described in this communication are dynamic and subject to change. While the ISO has attempted to reflect the most current, accurate information available in preparing this notice, system conditions may change suddenly with little or no notice.

-- PHO (owennos@bigfoot.com), March 20, 2001

Answers

Calif. orders blackouts for 2nd day March 20, 2001 Web posted at: 12:41 p.m. EST (1741 GMT)

FOLSOM, California (CNN) -- For the second day in a row, the state's electric power grid operator on Tuesday ordered rolling blackouts across California.

A spokeswoman said the California Independent System Operator told the state's utilities at 9:20 a.m. PT to cut power consumption by 500 megawatts.

That will prompt blackouts in areas selected by the individual utilities.

At a morning news briefing, officials from the CISO said power supplies remained "tight" and blackouts between 10 a.m. PT and 8 p.m. PT were possible if not likely.

Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for the CISO, earlier had said, "The possibility is very real" that more rolling blackouts would be ordered because two generating plants the system operators had counted on were not up and running Tuesday morning. Dorinson said there was a forecast that one of those plants might return by noon Pacific time, but he added that even if it does, California might not have enough power to avoid more blackouts.

He called for California consumers "to shut off all unnecessary appliances" to save electricity.

He estimated that the state could run from 800 to 1,000 megawatts of generation short of the power that is needed to avoid blackout.

Dorinson said California would be able to import less power from the Pacific northwest than it did on Monday.

In addition, he said small independent power generators with around 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity were also off line.

He refused to speculate why, but some of the operators have said they cannot operate because they have not been paid by the electric utilities they serve for power they generated in the past.

-- PHO (owennos@bigfoot.com), March 20, 2001.