Subject: follow up
From: [email-masked]
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Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 13:58:00 -0700 (PDT)

At the close of our very productive meeting yesterday, I promised to
circulate a brief update on California's electricity demand trends; it
appears below as an attachment at the close of a note I circulated
within NRDC earlier today, which I thought would be of interest:

Today should have been a severe test for the California grid:  we had
the third straight day of high temperatures throughout much of the state
and the Southwest (weather forecasts earlier in the week had prompted
warnings of rolling blackouts).  As I write this at 4 pm on Thursday,
average temperatures throughout the entire PG&E system are above 90
degrees.  But peak loads for the day will not reach 40,000 Megawatts,
and reserve margins are comfortable (about 15% at the peak hour).
California's last rolling blackouts occurred six weeks ago (and those
were very modest in scale).  It is far too soon to declare victory, but
these are hopeful signs, and they will help relieve pressure on the
Governor to crank up dirty emergency generators.  NRDC's updated
assessment of recent CA electricity consumption trends (attached again
just in case you've lost it) indicates that demand reductions clearly
are a big part of the reason why things are looking up.  There are
plenty of reasons for continued caution:  the entire West can get much
hotter, hydropower conditions in the Northwest remain awful,  and
complacency could shift demand back up quickly (much of the recent load
reductions represent reversible voluntary actions).

You can track the daily drama in detail at
http://www.caiso.com/outlook.html.

 - californiaconsumptiontrendsrevised.doc