Electrical demand requires IID to adopt ‘load shedding’ measures

EL CENTRO – High energy demand combined with an unexpected shortfall in reserves resulted in Imperial Irrigation District temporarily pausing service to some customers Saturday evening.

IID spokesman Robert Schettler said demand on the utility system reached a point where it became necessary to reduce the load by implementing outages of up to 15 minutes in various areas of Imperial and Coachella valleys.

Schettler said one of the problems IID encountered Saturday that led it to take this emergency action, known as “load shedding,” was that 300 megawatts of power expected to be available through the California Independent System Operator was not delivered.

While IID was able to draw upon 150 megawatts of emergency reserves, that still left a shortfall that first was addressed by systematically reducing the load by 100 MW and, later, by 50 MW.

Schettler said the load shedding began at 5 p.m. and ended at 7 p.m. Areas chosen for the outages were not predetermined, but were selected randomly through a computer program, he said.

It was unknown Saturday evening how many users were affected by the outages.

Schettler said he also didn’t know how likely it is there will be additional planned outages over the weekend, but he did say, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

To help reduce the need and duration of load shedding, IID customers are asked to conserve energy by:

• Avoiding use of major appliances like washers, dryers, dishwashers, pool pumps, applicable industrial equipment, charging electric vehicles, etc., between peak hours of 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

• Setting thermostats at 78 degrees or higher when home.

• Using floor or ceiling fans to cool off (however, be sure to turn fans off when leaving a room as they only cool people, not spaces).

• Turning off unnecessary lights.

• Blocking the sun from overheating the home by using shades, blinds and drapes.