Mitigation Options for Contingencies Threatening Southern California Electric Reliability

The California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, California Independent System Operator, and California Air Resources Board are working together to track resource development and electricity demand, and are identifying contingency mitigation options, should they be required, to assure electric system reliability in Southern California. A preliminary plan was developed by an interagency staff team and presented at a 2013 Integrated Energy Policy Report workshop in September 2013. Like most reliability assessments, there are risks (contingencies) and solutions (mitigation measures). The mitigation measures developed as part of the plan are designed to guard against the contingencies of less savings from preferred resource development, delays or termination of planned generation additions, or delays or poorer performance than planned of Independent System Operator-approved transmission system upgrades.

This report is a work in progress for one part of the overall contingency project. It identifies two options for addressing projected deficits of resources compared to local capacity requirements. One option is short-term deferral of scheduled compliance dates for power plants that use once-through cooling technologies. A second option is developing a generating project that has already been permitted, but which has not been constructed because there is no approved power purchase agreement. Each option satisfies a specific pattern of resource shortfalls that threaten reliability. This effort would have a range of options available for deployment if projections for the total amount of resource capacity fall short of local capacity requirements in one or more of the Southern California local capacity areas.