The grinning skull of Gray Davis looks on with interest


The California Independent System Operator, CalISO, has a sweet utility on their website that allows one to compare forecasts of available electricity to forecasts of demand. You can check it out here.

What strikes me about the graph today is that demand seems to be very close to outstripping supply, which is the reason why several MSM sources are starting to soften up Californians for the possibility of rolling blackouts — one of the main albatrosses hanging around Gray Davis' neck before his recall.



Yeah baby. That's demand coming up to about 98% of supply at the peak. What happens if one of those sudden 8% drops (like the one at 8 AM) happens in the middle of the afternoon? I realize that in an efficient market one wants there to be very little unused excess capacity, and I also realize that spikes of the sort at 8 AM this morning are sometimes the result of faulty data getting resolved within the computer tracking system -- I'm just saying, what if?

Not sure whether I've got a clear point just yet, but if I did it would be something like this: Just as the gubernatorial race between Schwarzenegger and Angelides is tightening up, wouldn't it be something if rolling blackouts started pushing down Arnold's popularity? Poetic justice, even.

Posted: Tue - July 25, 2006 at 01:08 PM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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