When it gets extremely hot outside, it can deplete your energy, and your home’s energy top. It’s important to prepare power outages, according to PG&E Spokesperson Katie Allen.
“That means having flashlights, making sure you have that needed medication, batteries, so being prepared is important as we work through this heatwave, and really all year round,” Allen said.
Sunday night, parts of Bakersfield were out of power for a few hours, which impacted thousands in Bakersfield. Due to scorching temperatures over the weekend, a record-breaking 111 degrees that day, rivaling 1961's 110, PGE’s Katie Allens said, it could have been heat-related.
“Which will happen, when our equipment is tested by the heat, fails in the heat, we do see those heat-related outages,” Allen said.
Sunday’s outage was not a rotating outage or pg&e calling a public safety power shutoff, according to Allen.
A rotating outage is when the state’s grid operator will call for an outage when the state’s power grid can’t keep up with demand, according to Allen. These usually happen over the summer during high heat and peak energy usage hours. They typically last an hour, According to Southern California Edison.
“So the grid operator will reach out to utilities in the state to take off a certain amount of electric use customers off the grid to ensure grid stability,” Allen said.
So far, we have not seen any rotating outages in the state this year, as we did in 2020.
according to allen, the state’s grid operator has said in recent weeks we’ve prevented rotating outages due to conservation efforts. “Small actions add up,” Allen said
