Electric System Reliability and the Recent Role of California’s Fossil Fleet

The Electric System Reliability and the Recent Role of California’s Fossil Fleet: Actions Taken for Incremental Resources to Prepare for Summer 2021 report summarizes the California Energy Commission’s Siting, Transmission, and Environmental Protection Division’s actions taken to address weather-related threats to the state’s electricity supply and support summer 2021 system reliability. The actions were initiated by Governor Gavin Newsom’s August 17, 2020, letter requiring the California Independent System Operator, the California Public Utilities Commission, and the California Energy Commission to determine the root cause of the August 14 and 15 rotating electricity outages, make recommendations, and implement those recommendations to address outages for summer 2021 and beyond. The final root cause analysis confirmed there was no single root cause of the August 2020 outages but rather found the three causal factors that contributed to the outages were extreme weather conditions, resource adequacy and planning processes, and market practices.