Western U.S. power prices hit records as California warns of more outages
Aug. 17, 2020 2:48 PM ETPG&E Corporation (PCG), EIX, SREEIX, SRE, PCGBy: Carl Surran, SA News Editor122 Comments
- Electric prices in western U.S. soar to record highs as California consumers prepared for more outages, after the state grid operator ordered utilities to cut power over the weekend to reduce strain on the system during a record breaking heat wave.
- After telling utilities late Friday to start rotating power outages, California Independent Systems Operator is urging consumers to keep conserving electricity through at least Wednesday when the weather is expected to improve.
- According to Reuters, power prices at the Palo Verde hub in Arizona rose to a record $350.50/MWh, citing data from Refinitiv going back to 2010; in California, prices at SP-15 in the southern part of the state rose to $270.75/MWh, the highest since August 2018.
- Rotating outages this weekend affected ~220K PG&E (PCG -2%) customers, more than 130K customers of Edison International's Southern California Edison (EIX -1.6%) and 58K customers of Sempra Energy's (SRE -1.8%) San Diego Gas & Electric.