Conserve energy to prevent rotating outages

Before the Flex Alert, Californians should:

• Pre-cool your home or workspace. Lower your thermostat in the morning. As the temperature rises outside, raise your thermostat and circulate the pre-cooled air with a fan.
• Use major appliances, including:
  • Washer and dryer
  • Dishwasher
  • Oven and stove for pre-cooking and preparing meals
• Close your shades. Sunlight passing through windows heats your home and makes your air conditioner work harder. Block this heat by keeping blinds or drapes closed on the sunny side of your home.

During the Flex Alert, Californians should:

• Set your thermostat at 78 degrees or higher, health permitting. Every degree you lower the thermostat means your air conditioner must work even harder to keep your home cool.
• When it's cooler outside, bring the cool air in. If the outside air is cool in the night or early morning, open windows and doors and use fans to cool your home.
• Avoid using major appliances.
• Turn off all unnecessary lights.

An Energy Emergency Alert 3 (EEA 3) is issued when the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is unable to meet minimum Contingency Reserve requirements for electricity and a load interruption—otherwise known as a power outage—is imminent or in progress. These emergencies are issued by the CAISO.

The CAISO will typically order the state's utilities, including PG&E, to reduce electrical load by initiating rotating outages to prevent larger outages on the grid. Due to the emergency nature of these outages, we may not be able to give advance warning to customers.

If your block is called, you'll experience an outage of typically 1-2 hours. Once your outage is over, your block shouldn't be shut off for a rotating outage again until all the other blocks in PG&E's service territory have been called.

Your block's shutoff time was pushed into the next timeslot because a shutoff wasn’t needed. For example, if your block was estimated to be shut off from 4-5 p.m. and a shutoff wasn't required, your block becomes first on the list for 5-6 p.m. This continues until the risk for outage passes completely or until rotating outages are enacted.

The CAISO manages the power grid in California. PG&E, along with the San Diego Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison, are participating members in the CAISO.

No. Rotating outages are due to statewide supply-and-demand issues. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) operates the state's power grid and tells PG&E when to enact a rotating outage. A PSPS helps prevent a wildfire in areas where severe weather and dry vegetation conditions are present. PG&E determines when a PSPS is needed—not the CAISO.

If we are in a situation that requires the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to call for rotating outages, PG&E will communicate to customers through local media, social media, and phone calls to alert them of the situation.

Due to the emergency nature of these outages, we may not be able to give advance warning to customers. Customers are being asked to conserve power and plan for the possibility of losing power for a brief period, should the CAISO issue an Energy Emergency Alert 3 (EEA 3).

A rotating outage typically lasts 1-2 hours. We manage and rotate the outage across blocks of customers throughout the service territory to protect the integrity of our electric system, while limiting the inconvenience to any one customer or community.

To find out if and when any location in our service area will be affected by a rotating outage, look up the address in our Outage Center.

In the event of an Energy Emergency Alert 3 (EEA 3), the CAISO will communicate to California's utilities the amount of energy load (in megawatts) they need to take offline. PG&E then selects the number of blocks in our service territory that, when taken offline, will meet the required reduction in energy.