Nearly half a million PG&E customers were warned about rotating outages on Tuesday as the state continues to combat the extremely brutal heat wave.
The California Independent System Operators announced an Energy Emergency Alert 3 from 5:17 to 8 p.m. CAISO asked PG&E to tell customers that rotating outages lasting one to two hours are possible. Still, efforts from residents can help avoid them.
This is amidst the historic heat wave with triple-digit temperatures that have torched the Bay Area and state. State energy officials said that the electrical load on Tuesday afternoon could reach 51,000 megawatts. This is the highest demand that the state has ever seen.
The CAISO site Tuesday morning showed California could fall more than 5,000 megawatts short of its power supply at peak demand, forecasted for 5:30 pm.