The shutdown of the leaking Aliso Canyon underground gas storage facility has caused a loss of about 70bcf of stored gas that Southern California utilities have historically counted on to see them through the hot, high-demand summer months. The California Independent Service Operator (CAISO), which manages the California grid, estimates that as a result all customers should expect to be without power for a total of 14 days this summer. Some 21 million Southern Californians stand to be directly affected.
Are blackouts on such a scale likely? It seems they are. According to Business Insider
SoCalGas uses Aliso Canyon to provide gas to power generators that cannot be met with pipeline flows alone on about 10 days per month during the summer, according to state agencies. In the summer SoCalGas strives to completely fill 86.2-billion cubic feet (bcf) Aliso Canyon to prepare for the upcoming winter heating season when gas demand peaks. State regulators, however, ordered the company in January to reduce the amount of working gas in Aliso Canyon to just 15 bcf and use that fuel to reduce the risk of gas curtailments and power interruptions this summer. State regulators will not allow SoCalGas to inject fuel into the facility until the company inspects all of its 114 wells.
And from the Wall Street Journal
But the pipelines can only bring in about 3 billion cubic feet of working gas a day into Southern California, below the daily demand, which gets as high as 5.7 billion cubic feet.
Figure 1: Remedial work in progress at Aliso Canyon
Aliso Canyon has a capacity or 86bcf but presently contains only 15bcf, representing a shortfall of 71bcf. How much gas generation does this represent? According to the conversions given in the BP Statistical review it’s 7.7 TWh. And how much gas does Southern California consume in the summer, which will continue for about another three months?
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