Rotating outages become necessary when the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) declares a statewide Energy Emergency Alert Level 3, which occurs when the state's electricity demand outpaces available supply in real-time or is unavoidable. CAISO will typically order the state's investor-owned utilities, including SCE, to reduce electrical load immediately.
To reduce our load, we will initiate a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved rotating outage plan in which controlled outages (lasting about one hour) are rotated among groups of customers throughout our service territory. Without rotating outages on a relatively small scale, a widespread disturbance to the electric grid could occur, which would lead to uncontrolled, large-scale outages.