{"id":58395,"date":"2021-06-27T07:41:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T12:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58395"},"modified":"2021-06-27T07:41:18","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T12:41:18","slug":"blackouts-loom-in-california-as-electricity-prices-are-absolutely-exploding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58395","title":{"rendered":"Blackouts Loom in California as Electricity Prices Are \u2018Absolutely Exploding\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Blackouts Loom in California as Electricity Prices Are \u2018Absolutely Exploding\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Two inexorable energy trends are underway in California: soaring electricity prices and ever-worsening reliability \u2013 and both trends\u00a0bode ill<\/a>\u00a0for the state\u2019s low- and middle-income consumers.<\/p>\n

Last week, the state\u2019s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator,\u00a0issued a \u201cflex alert\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that asked the state\u2019s consumers to reduce their power use \u201cto reduce stress on the grid and avoid power outages.\u201d CAISO\u2019s warning of impending electricity shortages heralds another blackout-riddled summer at the same time California\u2019s electricity prices are skyrocketing.<\/p>\n

In 2020, California\u2019s electricity prices jumped by 7.5%, making it the biggest price increase of any state in the country last year and nearly seven times the increase that was seen in the United States as a whole. According to\u00a0data from the Energy Information Administration<\/a>, the all-sector price of electricity in California last year jumped to 18.15 cents per kilowatt-hour, which means that Californians are now paying about 70% more for their electricity than the U.S. average all-sector rate of 10.66 cents per kWh. Even more worrisome: California\u2019s electricity rates are expected to soar over the next decade. (More on that in a moment.)<\/p>\n

The surging cost of electricity will increase the\u00a0energy burden<\/a>\u00a0being borne by low- and middle-income Californians. High energy costs have a particularly regressive effect in California, which has the highest poverty rate \u2013 and some of the highest electricity prices \u2013 in the country. In 2020, California\u2019s all-sector electricity prices were the third-highest in the continental U.S., behind only Rhode Island (18.55 cents per kWh) and Connecticut (19.19 cents per kWh.)<\/p>\n

Before going further, let me state the obvious: California policymakers are providing a case study in\u00a0how not to manage an electric grid<\/em>…<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackouts Loom in California as Electricity Prices Are \u2018Absolutely Exploding\u2019 Two inexorable energy trends are underway in California: soaring electricity prices and ever-worsening reliability \u2013 and both trends\u00a0bode ill\u00a0for the state\u2019s low- and middle-income consumers. Last week, the state\u2019s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator,\u00a0issued a \u201cflex alert\u201d\u00a0that asked the state\u2019s consumers to reduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[79,101,1103,1574,31375,24859],"class_list":["post-58395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-blackouts","tag-california","tag-electricity","tag-power-grid","tag-real-clear-energy","tag-robert-bryce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58396,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58395\/revisions\/58396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}