very interesting side effect of all the electric cars that Californians have bought, and installed home charging stations for - 140,000 of them, resulted in a power reserve that carried the state through the recent heat wave

 

It marks the largest residential “virtual power plant” dispatch event on record, supplying enough electricity to power every home in California’s Sacramento County at the same time.

The electricity dispatch happened during a severe heat wave on September 9. It was a late-summer extreme weather event

Millions of air conditioners operating simultaneously created massive demand spikes on the power grid, especially during the late-afternoon and early-evening hours.

Tesla Powerwalls provided 517 MW (via 110,000 devices), while other residential batteries provided 63 MW. Sunrun also dispatched over 30,000 customer batteries made by other manufacturers.

“Sunrun’s distributed home batteries are operating at a scale larger than many peaker power plants combined,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell.

State utility regulators requested the push through two crisis programs: the California Energy Commission’s Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program and the Public Utilities Commission’s Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP).

ntegrating home batteries eases wholesale price surges during extreme heat events and helps prevent rolling blackouts without the need for expensive new transmission lines. Plus, homeowners participating in these initiatives receive direct cash compensation for sharing their stored energy with the grid.

The following evening, on September 10, Southern California Edison called for a separate discharge that pushed another 140 megawatts onto the grid.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/140000-home-batteries-california-grid-heat-wave

I think this makes it clear, that there is no longer enough power generation ability, as you'll probably agree, there is more demand than ever when you factor in more people using more Air Conditioning during more heat waves, and all the other electrical demands, like AI data centers. 

it was only a couple years ago that I was reporting on the VERY narrow amount, under one megawatt, that California avoided a blackout, during a heat wave a couple years ago

Also in the news, 

Hawaiian Electric installed the first Tesla batteries for Maui’s largest standalone storage system. 

 The utility installed 6 Tesla Megapacks. The full project will have 54 units providing 160 MWh of energy storage strengthening Maui’s grid & supporting more renewable energy.

https://x.com/cb_doge/status/2102391150539911335