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Power shutoffs in California moving toward restoration; gas, power markets show minimal impacts

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Power shutoffs in California moving toward restoration; gas, power markets show minimal impacts

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Thursday's shutoffs hit 11% of PG&E customer accounts

Shutoff impacted 13.5% of PG&E transmission system

Houston — The "experiment" of shutting off power supplies to protect against sparking wildfires during hot, dry and windy weather conditions in northern California appears to be nearing an end, as utility Pacific Gas and Electric gradually returned service to thousands of customers on Thursday and is expected to restore more of the precautionary shutoffs by Friday.

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The bankrupt utility that faces billions of dollars of damage claims stemming from wildfires in 2017 and 2018 that its transmission equipment has been blamed for causing, launched the state's largest power shutoff on Wednesday following forecasts of peak winds reaching 60 to 70 mph through Thursday morning.

Early on Wednesday, with the backing of the California Public Utilities Commission, Pacific Gas and Electric launched a three stage effort that it said would shutoff power to a total of 789,000 customer accounts in the northeastern, San Francisco and southern areas of its vast, 70,000 square-mile northern and central California service territory where it serves a total of 5.4 million customer accounts.

Related story: PG&E restructuring pivots to parallel plans in 'fair shake' for wildfire victims

By Wednesday evening, the weather had improved in some areas of the state, and PG&E announced that it had restored power to 50,000 customers who had been shutoff in the first stage, and reduced from 43,000 to just 4,000 the number of customers it had expected to be impacted in the its third stage shutoff.

It said that resources were poised to support the restoration process, including 45 helicopters and more than 6,300 on-the-ground field personnel. It said that it expected weather to subside around midday Thursday in the Sierra Foothills and the Bay Area/Santa Cruz, while weather conditions in the Kern/Bakersfield area were forecasted to improve into midday Friday.

On Thursday morning, Pacific Gas and Electric said that it had brought back online 126,000 customer accounts, leaving approximately 620,000 without power, with roughly half of that number being customers in the San Francisco and Oakland areas.

"The company has received many preliminary reports of vegetation-related damage to its equipment in these areas," PG&E said.

GAS AND POWER MARKETS RELATIVELY UNAFFECTED

The shutoff on Thursday morning impacted roughly 11% of PG&E's customer accounts.

PG&E has 106,681 circuit miles of electric distribution lines and 18,466 circuit miles of interconnected transmission lines.

It said on Thursday that involved in the shutoff were nearly 25,000 miles of its distribution lines, or 23.5% of its total, and 2,500 miles of its transmission lines, or 13.5% of its total.

Shortly after midday Thursday, the California ISO said it had 39,829 MW of available capacity to meet its forecasted peak demand for the day of 28,878 MW. It said Friday's forecasted peak demand was 29,111 MW.

It said that at 12:25 pm PT demand was 23,413 MW, and that renewables were meeting 62.6% of that demand, or 14,640 MW. Solar generation was meeting 10,100 MW of the demand while wind was meeting 2,953 MW and geothermal was meeting 922 MW.

Natural gas-fired generation was meeting 22.3% of the demand, with generation of 5,209 MW.

Since the outage began, PG&E's daily on-system gas demand has remained relatively unaffected, dropping only 92 MMcf/d from the October 8 level of 2,137 MMcf/d.

Regional power prices remained unaffected by the outage, instead mirroring gas prices and regional demand forecasts.

Real-time hourly average prices for NP15 on Thursday morning ranged from $12.40/MWh during peak solar hours to $28.74/MWh, on par with pricing levels from the past two days.

Real time pricing reached a high of $37.18/MWH at the start of the five-minute interval in the 8 am hour, according to ISO data, in line with recent pricing levels.

California zone SP15 traded about $1 higher on ICE at $31.25/MWh, moving up with gas hub SoCal city-gates, which increased 32.5 cents to $3.900/MMBtu.

Surrounding Southwest prices traded lower on the day, mirroring California demand expectations and other spot gas prices, which trended down on the day.

California-Oregon Border on-peak shed a few cents in morning trading to price in the low $30s/MWh on ICE. The off-peak package traded higher, gaining about $3.50 to price near $34.75/MWh.

CPUC SAYS LESSONS LEARNED

The National Weather Service has said that weather conditions conducive for a dangerous fire risk typically ramp up in October. The high winds can down trees and power lines and cause wildfires to spread rapidly. "Fall is the driest time of year after the summer dry season," the NWS said.

Late on Thursday, the spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission said that the CPUC, the California Office of Emergency Services and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have been "actively monitoring PG&E's activities during Public Safety Power Shutoff events, including embedding staff at PG&E's Emergency Operations Center for direct observation and to facilitate coordination."

There are lessons learned, CPUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said, "and opportunities for PG&E to improve its processes that are continuously being identified, discussed, and followed up on. Currently our focus is on execution of PSPS events this week and collaborating to ensure public safety.

-- Jeffrey Ryser, jeffrey.ryser@spglobal.com

-- Edited by Rocco Canonica, newsdesk@spglobal.com