California’s Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Blackouts: Texting Consumers

Entering the critical evening hours of a crushing heat wave Tuesday night, California power grid officials were down to their last recourse to avoid rolling blackouts: customer conservation.

It worked. Consumers heeded officials’ pleas to cut power use on Tuesday, which included an unprecedented text message to 27 million Californians, and the state narrowly avoided its first controlled power outages since a heat wave in 2020. California again avoided blackouts on Wednesday night and has so far managed to keep the lights on amid record-breaking temperatures in many parts of the state.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said his administration debated for days whether they should use the text message alert. By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, officials had determined there wouldn’t be enough power to meet demand and warned consumers of imminent blackouts. The text was sent around 5:55 p.m., and within 45 minutes there was a roughly 2,600-megawatt reduction in usage.

Mr. Newsom said he hopes his administration doesn’t need to use the alerts again. "The challenge is if you overuse that, it begins to dilute itself,” he said.