
Rolling blackouts are back in California.

Starting about 11:45am PST, CA-ISO requested utilities start shedding
approximately 500 to 1000 MW.  Involuntary load curtailment is expected
to continue through the evening.

11,500 MW of power production was unavailable due to planned and unplanned
maintenance.  An additional 1,000 MW of power product was lost this morning
when a transformer fire knocked two plants off-line in Southern California.

A couple of colocation and Internet service providers reported they were
operating on backup generators for 60-90 minutes as their power blocks
were affected.  No customer loads were reportedly dropped.

Sun Microsystems reported loss of power at a manufacturing facility for
two hours.

PG&E is rezoning those blocks "exempted" from rolling blackouts beinging
this month.  Some customers previously identified as being in an exempt
block are being moved since they aren't sharing a circuit with a critical
facility.  Likewise, some circuits not identified as serving critical
facilities are now exempt because a critical facility is on the circuit.
Critical facility means a hospital, emergency operations center, etc.






