The California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, issued a Flex Alert due to predicted high-energy demand and tightening available power supplies. CAISO is asking Californians to conserve energy from 4-9 p.m., when energy demand is expected to be the highest, in order to protect grid reliability. The Flex Alert could be extended through the Labor Day weekend.

Currently, CAISO has not indicated the need for rotating outages to reduce stress on the electric grid. SCE will alert customers as quickly as possible should they become necessary. When SCE prepares to initiate rotating outages, the location of impacted circuits is displayed on our outage map at sce.com/outage. To learn more about CAISO’s system alerts and energy emergencies, please visit caiso.com.

With respect to SCE’s system, there are currently no major, heat-related outages across our service area.

Given the forecast for continued high temperatures, SCE is taking a number of actions:

• Encouraging residential and business customers to conserve energy through Tuesday, Sept. 6, since customer conservation efforts are instrumental in helping maintain electric service during significant heat waves; this includes our demand response programs, which customers signed up for to help conserve energy;
• Continuing to evaluate planned maintenance work that requires a power outage and actively canceling or postponing projects unless they directly impact the safe delivery of electricity to customers; and
• Scheduling additional crews and customer service representatives to be on call throughout the weekend to respond quickly to critical repairs and customer questions; we also are staging equipment in areas that could be the most-heavily impacted.

SCE will maintain updated outage information at sce.com/outage.

To prepare for the Flex Alert, customers can take these steps before 4pm:

• “Pre-cool” homes or lower air-conditioning thermostats.
• Charge electric vehicles.
• Charge mobile devices and laptops.
• Run dishwashers, washing machines, and other major appliances.
• Set pool pumps to run in the early morning or late at night.

Here are some other ways customers can conserve energy:

• Set your thermostat to 78 degrees when you are home and to 85 degrees or “off” when you are away.
• Cook with a grill outside, or microwave, to keep your home cooler.
• Give your air conditioner a rest when you can and cool your home with open windows and fans when you can.
• Shut off lights when leaving a room.
• Close your blinds to keep out the afternoon heat.
• Limit the opening and reopening of refrigerators, which are major users of electricity in many homes.
• Plug home electronics into power strips and turn off power strips when equipment is not in use.
• Unplug electronic devices and chargers when they are not in use.
• Give your dryer a break 4-9 p.m. and hang dry your clothes, if you can.
• When possible, businesses should shift power-intensive work to morning or late-evening hours.