Extreme wind, rain cuts power to more than 1.3 million in California Feb. 4

An extreme wind and rain storm hitting the California coast Feb. 4 cut power to more than 1.3 million customers mainly in the northern part of the state, cutting power demand and prices.

Pacific Gas and Electric reported wind gusts near 100 mph, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District reported winds around 65 mph as the "atmospheric river" dumped several inches on the state.

"In terms of outage totals, this was one of the top three most damaging, single-day storms on record, only comparable to storms 2008 and 1995," PG&E Chief Operating Officer Sumeet Singh said Feb. 5.

At the height of the storm, PG&E reported about 1.1 million customers without power. As of 3 pm CT Feb. 5, PowerOutage.US reported almost 458,000 PG&E customers offline.

SMUD reported that the storm brought more than eight hours of 65-plus mph winds, causing downed trees and widespread destruction, interrupting service to about 200,000 customers. As of about 3 pm CT Feb. 5, SMUD reported more than 27,000 customers offline.

Extreme winds, rain

Northern California appeared to bear the brunt of high winds, while Southern California received much more rain totals. For example, the California Nevada River Forecast Center reported a maximum observed rain of less than 3.2 inches over the previous 24 hours as of 3 pm CT at Sims, about 250 miles north of San Francisco. In contrast, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles reported 6.5 inches for the same period.

California Independent System Operator load peaked at 25.2 GW Feb. 4, 2.2 GW or 7.9% below the previous five-year average for that date.

CAISO forecast load to peak at 28.1 GW Feb. 5, which is up from the previous five-year average of 26.9 GW for that date, but also forecast a drop to 27.5 GW Feb. 6.

NP15 power prices were especially weaker the morning of Feb. 5, with day-ahead on-peak power trading down $12.50 on the Intercontinental Exchange to about $52.50/MWh for Feb. 6 delivery. In contrast, SP15 on-peak fell less than 25 cents to about $51/MWh for Feb. 6 delivery.

NP15 balance-of-week power was not trading, but SP15 bal-week had bid and offer activity between $38/MWh and $44/MWh, compared with the previous settlement around $50/MWh.