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Measures Taken to Ease Northwest Power Pinch by Gail Kinsey Hill, Oregonian staff The Oregonian, December 12, 2000

California gets a nuclear facility back up,
dams release water and an aluminum plant closes

Cold weather in the Northwest continued to strain power supplies across the West Coast on Monday, but the crunch was eased somewhat when a California nuclear plant returned to full power, a Washington aluminum plant shut down and extra water at two big dams in the Northwest was released.

The California Independent System Operator, which manages the power grid that serves 75 percent of California, called off its emergency alerts early Monday but urged residents to continue conservation efforts.

Cold weather in other states means less electricity for California, which buys some of its power from out-of-state utilities.

The energy shortage was helped when the second unit at California's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant went online Monday four hours earlier than expected after a maintenance shutdown. The plant's two units provide power for about 2 million people.

In the Northwest, Kaiser Aluminum started a temporary shutdown of a smelter it operates in Mead, Wash., completely idling the company's Northwest smelter capacity. The power that the aluminum plant would have used will be sold to other customers.

"Things are still tight because we're depending on imports from the Northwest, which is still in a warning alert," said Jim Detmers, managing director of operations for the California system operator.

Ed Riley, director of power grid operations at the California system operator, said the shortfall could result in a Stage 2 alert in the northern half of the state, where large commercial customers such as Intel could be forced to cut back on electricity use. Southern California had enough resources Monday, Riley said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released extra water at two dams in the Northwest to help keep up with electricity demands brought on by chilly weather.

The boosted outflow meant an increase of 400 megawatts of power from Dworshak Dam in north-central Idaho and 390 megawatts from Libby Dam in western Montana, said Cindy Henriksen, chief of the corps' reservoir control center in Portland.

It takes about 1,000 megawatts to light up a city the size of Seattle.

Over the next two or three days, the water from those dams will continue downstream through the Snake or Columbia systems, generating additional power along the way, she said.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation also increased output at the Grand Coulee Dam in Eastern Washington and the Hungry Horse Dam in Montana. Each day, the corps evaluates the weather and the region's power needs before deciding how to manage the water storage at its dams.

The Northwest Emergency Response Team, comprising utilities, the Bonneville Power Administration and state officials from Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho, met Monday and maintained a Stage 2 warning for the region, first issued Friday in anticipation of an arctic cold front bearing down on the region.

Temperatures have been below normal in the Northwest in recent days, and power officials had feared they could drop as much as 20 degrees below normal. While the cold snap isn't expected to be as harsh as previously predicted, forecasters still expect frigid temperatures this week.

"Just about every degree above what was previously expected makes things a little bit better," said forecaster Jay Albrecht of the National Weather Service.

Stage 2 emergencies, indicating power reserves are at less than 5 percent, were issued in California each day last week. An unprecedented Stage 3 emergency was issued Thursday, meaning reserves had fallen below 1.5 percent and the threat of rolling outages loomed.

The warnings issued in the Northwest, precursors of actual emergencies, differ from California's crisis declarations.

Wholesale power costs have been soaring, due in large part to skyrocketing prices and restricted supplies. While prices have soared everywhere in the United States, California has been hardest hit, in part because the state has been more aggressive in deregulating electricity markets than other states.

Oregon and Washington are not as far along in deregulating electricity suppliers as California. Much of the region's power supply comes from hydropower dams overseen by the BPA.

The BPA, along with large utilities, such as Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp, has activated programs in which it buys back power from some of its big industrial customers. The exchange programs free extra power when shortages loom, but they also could mean layoffs as affected companies curtail operations.

The Kaiser shutdown, expected to be complete in several days, frees up electricity that the BPA had committed to the utility company. It follows earlier partial cutbacks at the 200,000-metric ton capacity aluminum smelter near Spokane.

"The Northwest region needs energy now to cover its deficit, and we have energy that we believe can benefit the region and its residents," said Raymond J. Milchovich, president and chief executive officer of Houston-based Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical, the operating subsidiary of Kaiser Aluminum.

About 400 hourly employees at Mead will be affected by the 10-month curtailment, the company said. They will receive up to 70 percent of wages for a period of time depending on length of service, with medical benefits and pension credits to be continued, the company said.

Kaiser will receive about $52 million from sale of the power provided under a contract with the BPA, the company said. The money will be received in January.

Kaiser's Tacoma smelter was shut down in June.

Kaiser said it will keep Northwest smelters curtailed until Oct. 1, when it begins a five-year BPA contract that provides enough power to operate at about 40 percent of capacity in the region.

The company in October ended a two-year labor dispute with the United Steelworkers of America, using arbitration to settle conflict over a company demand for fewer workers and productivity gains.