CAISO, CPUC, CEC Issue Final Report on Causes of August 2020 Rotating Outages
SACRAMENTO, January 13, 2021 – Today the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and California Energy Commission (CEC) issued a Final Root Cause Analysis of the August 2020 heat wave and rotating outages.
On August 14 and 15, 2020, the CAISO was forced to institute rotating electricity outages in California in the midst of a West-wide extreme heat wave. Following these emergency events, Governor Gavin Newsom requested the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC report on the root causes of the events leading to the August outages.
The CAISO, CPUC and CEC produced a preliminary report on October 6, 2020, and have since continued their analysis to confirm and supplement their preliminary findings. This report serves as the Final Root Cause Analysis and incorporates additional data analysis not available when the preliminary report was published. The Final Root Cause Analysis confirms the preliminary report's findings that the three major factors leading to the August outages were related to extreme weather conditions, resource adequacy and planning processes, and market practices.
“This Final Root Cause Analysis provides important insights and lessons learned about the factors that contributed to the rotating power outages of last summer,” said CAISO President and CEO Elliot Mainzer. “As we prepare for summer 2021 and beyond, I look forward to working closely with the CPUC, CEC, policymakers and regional stakeholders to bring our planning, procurement and operational practices together into a modernized and well-integrated resource adequacy framework for California.”
“The acceleration of climate change demands we enhance our planning efforts and market practices at a faster pace and with broader anticipation for what is possible,” said CPUC President Marybel Batjer. “It is our top priority to ensure we have the demand- and supply-side resources needed to maintain reliability, and this analysis demonstrates how we will do it and continue to decarbonize the grid.”