Increasingly Wild Weather Worries California’s Grid Operator

(Bloomberg) -- Extreme weather events that strike with increasing frequency — from record heat waves to floods and damaging storms — are making it harder for electric systems to plan for the future, according to the head of California’s grid operator.

That means California will still need natural gas plants and nuclear energy for the immediate future as it races to ramp up renewable power, said Elliot Mainzer, chief executive officer of the California Independent System Operator.

Recent days have demonstrated the challenges wild weather can pose. More than 1 million Texas customers lost power from high winds and heavy rain this week. India’s capital of Delhi endured temperatures above 52C (126F), straining the grid. 

“Look at the kinds of ferocious storms and the water content and the winds and the heat and the drought,” Mainzer said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “The volatility and the uncertainty and the extreme events (are) still something that I worry about.”

Climate uncertainty makes it hard to forecast not just energy usage but also supply from wind and solar farms or even traditional power plants that use water for cooling. “We’re still in the early stages of really understanding” how extreme weather will affect the system, Mainzer said. 

It’s not the only uncertainty grid operators face. They have long planned for rising demand, as electric cars grow more popular and new homes switch to electricity for heating. But now artificial intelligence has triggered a construction boom for data centers that need enormous amounts of power, a development Mainzer said caught many in the utility industry off-guard. 

Although California is rapidly adding renewable power and large-scale batteries to its grid, the questions around extreme weather and power demand mean the state will still need to rely on both natural gas and its one remaining nuclear plant for the coming years, Mainzer said. The two power sources face pressure from environmental groups who want to close fossil fuel plants and who view reactors as safety hazards. California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is currently scheduled to stay open until 2030 to ensure grid reliability.  

“We’re becoming less dependent on that gas fleet under many circumstances,” Mainzer said. “But when it’s 116 degrees in Northern California and we’re looking at very, very hot conditions in the desert Southwest and not great hydro in the Northwest, you know that that gas fleet’s going to continue to provide reliability services.”

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