Acting in response to Governor Newsom’s July 2021 Proclamation of a State of Emergency, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has announced the deployment of four, 30 megawatt temporary mobile emergency power generating units. Two of the units will be operated by Calpine and are located at the site of the decommissioned Greenleaf 1 Cogeneration facility in Yuba City. The other two will be operated by Roseville Electric at the Roseville Energy Park.
The rapid development schedule was enabled by the Emergency Proclamation’s instruction calling on DWR to work with the California Energy Commission (CEC) to develop additional energy capacity to address the impacts of climate induced drought, wildfires, and extreme heat waves. The four units were permitted through the CEC’s Temporary and Emergency Generation Program, and are designed to be online within five minutes if needed at the direction of the California Independent System Operator or the Western Area Power Authority.
The decision to activate emergency generation will be made pursuant to a contingency plan developed in coordination with the CEC and the California Public Utilities Commission. The plan includes a range of measures to address energy supply shortfalls such as occurred in August 2020, including Flex Alerts, coordination with adjacent balancing authorities, demand reduction strategies, and bringing online new resources, including the Yuba City and/or Roseville generators.
Contact: Samantha Neumyer or Chase Maxwell
