Southwest could suffer three summer power outages

Wednesday, June 21, 2000 | 11:25 a.m.

The Southwest could suffer up to three power blackouts this summer with hotter-than-normal temperatures expected to increase demands for electricity, instead of a typical single disruption, utility officials said.

Such regional outages could last up to three hours each. Nevada Power officials do not expect such outages to affect local users, but they are relying on power purchased from states in the region to fill the Las Vegas Valley's summer needs.

Southern California power officials are very concerned about brownouts and blackouts this summer, however, and appeared before the Nevada Environmental Commission on Tuesday to ask for permission to increase production at the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin.

The environmental board approved the increase and the accompanying hike in pollution from the plant.

The utilities hope the higher production will avoid a power emergency, said Tracy Bibb, engineering and maintenance director for the California Independent System Operator, the umbrella group for distributing Southern California's power since 1998.

Before utilities declare an emergency, the companies will go on the market in search of more power, he said.

If utilities still cannot meet demands, usually during the hottest time of the day between 3 and 6 p.m., then power will be cut to customers who have volunteered to reduce usage in an emergency, Bibb said.

Heat into the 90s and 100s in the San Francisco Bay area last week already has forced Northern California into voluntary blackouts and brownouts, Bibb said.

The pollution from the extra power production at Laughlin is not expected to violate any state or federal clean air or public health laws. But an observer might notice darker plumes from the plant, 90 miles southeast of Las Vegas, Mohave Manager Nader Mansour said.

Easing the pollution control rule will last four months at Mohave. The Laughlin Town Advisory Board and the Bullhead City Council in Arizona had approved relaxing the pollution rule.

But Robert Hall, director of the Nevada Environmental Coalition, objected to the rule change.

Hall blamed the prospects of a power emergency on "a management and planning disaster" brought on by the utilities. "The public has not been informed on this issue," Hall said. He said the Mohave plant should be phased out and cleaner power producers replace its 1,600 megawatts of electricity.

At the same time that California is hunting for more electricity in summer months, Nevada is in the market for 2,000 megawatts to supply its growing population, Mansour said. Southern California Edison owns the major portion of the Laughlin plant.

Nevada Power transmission director Mark Shank said the local utility expects no trouble delivering on demand over the next three months. "We think we are very well prepared," he said, although demand is expected to be 6 percent higher this summer.

The company's marketing group went out last fall and secured contracts outside the state for 40 percent of summer resources, Shank said. The other 60 percent comes from plants in and around Southern Nevada, including the Mohave plant, he said.

The Nevada utility owns 14 percent of the Mohave plant and can receive that amount of the power generated, Mansour said. That amounts to roughly 200 megawatts of electricity, which can supply power for up to 65,000 homes.