All Customers Asked To Conserve Energy During Caiso Flex Alert In Laguna Beach

Press release from the City of Laguna Beach:

August 17, 2020

Laguna Beach, CA – Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) are asking all customers to do their part to conserve energy consistent with the Flex Alert issued by the California Independent Systems Operator (CAISO). A statewide energy flex alert has been issued from Sunday, August 16th to Wednesday, August 19th, from 3:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. daily. A flex alert is a voluntarily call to all customers to conserve energy when demand for power could surpass supply, typically occurring during heatwaves when electrical demand is high.

SCE business customers are also encouraged to use all available onsite back-up generation during the hours of 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. due to current excessive weather conditions and a persistent shortage of electric supply for the California grid. The use of onsite back-up generation to self-supply customer demand will help to alleviate electric shortages and may decrease or eliminate the need for rotating outages across the state. The City will be using backup power when possible to assist with the power shortage.

Rotating outages become necessary when the state's electricity reserves have fallen below a predetermined threshold or are expected to. A rotating outage typically lasts one hour with little to no warning from the utility company. Power companies rotate the outage across groups of customers throughout the service territory to protect the integrity of the electric system and limit the inconvenience to any one customer or community.

Customer tips to conserve energy during a Flex Alert:

Set A/C to 78 or higher

Turn off unnecessary lights

Avoid using major appliances (oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer) between 3:00-9:00pm
Unplug power strips, phone chargers, and other equipment when not in use. Taken together, these small items can use as much power as a refrigerator.

For more information on CAISO, click HERE and subscribe to CAISO Alerts HERE. For more information on SCE Outages click HERE or customers can also contact SCE at 1-800-611-1911 to find out whether your neighborhood is part of a current controlled outage. For information on SDG&E Outages click HERE. SDG&E customers can see whether they may be affected by a controlled outage at sdge.com/myaccount.

This press release was produced by the City of Laguna Beach>. The views expressed here are the author’s own.