California public safety power shutdowns

Wed Oct 9 21:26:54 UTC 2019

On Wed, 9 Oct 2019, William Herrin wrote:
> Wasn't California in a similar mess 20 years ago when government regulation
> at the time also put PG&E in the position that they couldn't deliver the
> electricity their customers wanted? Something to do with hard limits on what
> PG&E could do but few limits on what third parties could do to it.

Yep, Enron (allegedly) used the California electric grid deregulation 
rules to arbitrage the system by causing false grid shortages and driving 
up wholesale electric prices.

It caused rolling blackouts throughout the CA ISO region in 2000 and 2001.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/us/tapes-show-enron-arranged-plant-shutdown.html