From: rs@seastrom.com (Robert E. Seastrom) Date: 18 May 2001 10:11:44 -0400 Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> writes:
Why is 2 to 3 times more capacity offline this year compared with previous years? I don't know. It appears the "supply" shortage is not due to increased demand, or even the lack of new power plant capacity; but due to the shutdown of existing capacity by generation companies at a higher rate than normal.
My understanding is that there is a seasonal "online / maint" cycle for the generation plants, and that many of them were not taken offline for normal PM several months ago because of energy usage _then_... my unsubstantiated guess would be that just like letting your car go 30,000 miles between a pair of oil changes, procrastination of the maint cycle eventually comes home to roost and that's what we're seeing now.
As with everything in the California energy situation, it's more complex than it seems. 1. There was likely substantial manipulation of the natural gas market last winter. (Both the courts and congress are looking at this and there is a "smoking gun" that indicates that the controlling natural gas distributor was holding back on delivery to force prices up.) 2. The amount many small generators were paid for power was contractually fixed so that when gas prices sky-rocketed, the generators could not afford to sell power to the ISO. This was made far worse when PG&E and So. Cal. Edison got into trouble and stopped paying ANYTHING which forced more small generators to shut down. 3. The state is now claiming evidence that, when the tight electrical market appeared, large generators took plants off-line for unscheduled and unneeded maintenance, forcing the crisis and shooting prices on the spot market to obscene levels. Power that Reliant was selling previously for was suddenly selling for over $1500 and California paid rather than have black-outs. In retrospect, this was probably a bad choice, but the state was very determined to avoid blackouts. As a result we still had blackouts (albeit fewer) and the state has spent over $6 billion which has drained the treasury and will soon result in the sale of bonds to keep the state solvent. Add to this a long scheduled shutdown of half of the largest power plant in the state (Diablo Canyon) for refueling, and you have a LOT of generating capacity off-line. I have avoided pointing fingers except where formal, public allegations of specific wrong-doing have been made. I have also skipped the Cal-ISO structure which invites price manipulation and the politics of power which promised windfall profits for PG&E and Edison but, instead, led to massive losses and, for Pacific Gas and Electric, to bankruptcy. I have not mentioned Texas/Washington (D.C.) politics or Washington/Oregon rainfall (or the lack thereof) which has resulted in a huge decline in available hydro-electric power. There is plenty of blame for most of those involved and it looks likely to get a lot worse before it gets better. We have a new, large emergency generator to be installed shortly. :-( But the lights are still on and I'll be using Arizona power to keep cool for a few days. R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634