Utility Dive summarized the energy crisis facing California amidst the heat wave, quoting AEE’s Leah Rubin Shen. Read snippets below and the full article here.

The new slate of clean energy resources the California Public Utilities Commission approved last week will take about five years to fully come online. In the meantime, grid officials say conservation and demand flexibility will be key to maintaining reliability.

The state's hydro resources are 40% below last year's levels — which was also below average… 

Some areas of California are forecast to be in the mid-100s Fahrenheit today, the ISO said, and generally about 4 to 8 degrees above normal for Northern California and 6 to 15 degrees above normal in Southern California.

This is familiar territory. The state faced blackouts last summer, and a root cause analysis published in January largely blamed a heat wave caused by climate change and issues with resource planning targets.

 Since then, as much as 2,000 MW of additional battery storage has been added to the California grid… the forecast across the Pacific Northwest called for temperatures up to 111 degrees Fahrenheit this week, potentially impacting the ISO's ability to import energy.

"These systems are so interdependent, whether you're talking about food, water or energy, everything is very much connected," said Leah Rubin Shen, director at Advanced Energy Economy. "So taking that system-level approach was always important and is becoming increasingly important as we see greater and greater resources stress."

Read the full article here.