FERC on Tuesday approved a set of CAISO tariff revisions intended to prevent the kind of supply shortages that triggered rolling blackouts in California last summer during an extended Western heat wave (ER21-1536). The changes, the product of an expedited effort to head off shortages this summer, originate from the...

The Biden administration Tuesday announced it plans to offer leases for California’s first offshore wind areas, a 399-square-mile block off Morro Bay that could support 3 GW, and the Humboldt Call Area off Northern California, which it said is big enough for an additional 1.6 GW. The Morro Bay area...

Pacific Gas and Electric (NYSE: PCG) will sell its iconic San Francisco headquarters to a real estate venture for $800 million, the company said Monday. The deal with Hines Atlas US includes PG&E properties at 77 Beale St. and 245 Market St., in the heart of the city’s high-priced financial district.

The CAISO Board of Governors approved changes Wednesday to the ISO’s criteria for recommending new board members to California’s governor. The updates, the first in 16 years, are intended to broaden the pool of nominating committee members and candidates to reflect changes in the electric industry. "The policy has not...

The California Public Utilities Commission proposed Friday requiring electric providers to procure 11.5 GW of new resources between 2023 and 2026 to meet the state’s reliability needs and bolster its transition to 100% clean energy. The proposed decision cited the need to avoid capacity shortfalls like those that caused rolling...

FERC issued a set of orders Thursday that indicate that the myriad disputes around the Western energy crisis of 2000/01 might finally be winding down two decades after California’s nascent wholesale energy market was paralyzed by widespread market manipulation. The most significant of the orders dealt with a complaint by...

Extreme heat and drought conditions are once again a major cause for concern in the Western Interconnection, while the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is likely to drive uncertainty across the North American electric grid, according to FERC’s 2021 Summer Energy Market and Reliability Assessment. In the report issued Thursday during the...

Utility wildfire experts told WECC last week that another expected year of hot, dry weather will increase the danger of major fires in California, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest that could threaten the electric grid during the West’s annual fire season. "If you look at any of the indices across...

CAISO kicked off an extended 20-year transmission planning process (TPP) on Friday to support the state’s clean energy goals. The long-term planning process, still in its conceptual stages, was launched in a two-hour stakeholder call covering its broad outline and inviting an initial round of comments from interested parties by...

A second dry winter has left reservoirs low in California, diminishing hydropower at major generators such as Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville. | California Department of Water Resources Despite a large influx of new resources, California could experience capacity shortfalls this summer during severe heat waves because of limited imports...