The California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, which manages electricity over the state's high-voltage transmission lines, narrowly avoided having to institute the rolling blackouts Tuesday. That’s when the state saw an all-time record high power grid peak demand of more than 52-thousand megawatts.
Nevertheless, there were still tens of thousands of people who lost power due to heat-related outages amid triple-digit temperature heat Tuesday, with about 57-thousand customers impacted at the peak around 9 p.m., PG&E spokesperson Deanna Contreras said.
Crews from the utility worked overnight to restore power and got the number of customers affected down to about 3,585 as of 9 a.m. Wednesday, with more than 3,000 of those located in the South Bay.
With temperatures around the Bay Area and elsewhere in the state forecasted to reach triple digits again today (Wednesday) -- though slightly lower than Tuesday's -- CAISO has issued another statewide Flex Alert to call for voluntary electricity conservation particularly during the hours of 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
