Crisis and challenges in California restructured electricity market

Summary form only given as follows. After experiencing two relatively smooth years since the pioneer debut of operating an open access electric market in the United States in March 1998, California State was suddenly confronted with a serious crisis during the summer of 2000 and the spring of 2001. Because such a crisis bears enormous economical impact to the State and it threatens to reverse the movement of restructuring electricity market in the United States and elsewhere in the world, interested parties and people still try to understand and investigate the crisis in the post crisis era. In this presentation we provide a viewpoint of the system operator (the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) that runs the California electric power grid and market) on this unfortunate power crisis. This presentation first describes the power crisis and its impact, then explores the causes for this crisis and introduces the procedures and efforts that different parties, including federal and state government, and the CAISO have taken to resolve the crisis. Lastly, this presentation summarises lessons learnt from the crisis and illustrates challenges ahead to prevent future crisis.