Thousands in Lodi lose power unnecessarily due to miscommunication between power agencies

Sep. 7—A communication error between two energy agencies caused nearly 1,400 customers in Lodi to lose power for 45 minutes Tuesday night.

Just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, the City of Lodi posted an advisory to residents on its Facebook page that it was being asked to load shed 5.58MW of power by the Northern California Power Authority.

The city advised it would be shutting off power to the Park West, Lodi West, Harvest Crossing and Bridgetown neighborhoods for about an hour at 6:20 p.m. that evening. Some 1,372 customers were affected, and the NCPA sent the city a message to restore power and standby at 7:05 p.m. However, at 10 p.m., the city reported the power should not have been shut off at all.

"We heard from NCPA at 8:30 p.m. that the load shed order to Lodi was in error," the city said. "NCPA informed Lodi Electric that there was a communication error between them and Cal ISO that caused NCPA to issue the order to Lodi and other NCPA members."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, at least three NCPA member cities in the Bay Area — Alameda, Healdsburg and Palo Alto — were told to initiate rolling blackouts Tuesday night. NCPA members include Lodi, Alameda, Healdsburg, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Biggs, Gridley, Lompoc, Redding, Roseville, Shasta Lake and Ukiah.

At about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, California Independent System Operator —

or Cal ISO — said that electricity supplies were running low due to "unprecedented demand" during a record-breaking heat wave that was straining the state's power grid, the Chronicle reported.

The agency moved into Stage 3 emergency operations, allowing it to order rotating power outages if needed. But just after 8 p.m., the agency reported that it did not order any load sheds for the night.

Other areas of Lodi experienced power outages unrelated to the rolling blackouts, according to the city's alert center at www.lodi.gov.

Power went out in the area bounded by Mendocino Drive, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, Harney Lane and Hutchins Street at about 7:20 p.m., the city reported. Troublemen patrolled the line, and power was restored by 11:52 p.m.

At the same time, an outage was reported in the in the area bounded by Almond Drive, Cherokee Lane, Harney Lane and Stockton Street. A second power outage occurred in the area bounded by Spruce,

Sacramento, Vine and School streets at about 8:30 p.m., and power was

restored two hours later.