Energy

‘Turn Up Your Damn Thermostat’: Former Gov. Jerry Brown Tells Californians How To Avoid Blackouts During A Heatwave

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Former California Gov. Jerry Brown tweeted Tuesday that Californians can avoid further blackouts if they turn up their thermostat.

“Hey California! We can avoid a blackout, but you have to turn up your damn thermostat!” Brown tweeted.

The former Democratic governor’s suggestion comes as many citizens are subject to power outages due to heavy strain on the energy grid, CNBC reported.

Hey California! We can avoid a blackout, but you have to turn up your damn thermostat! https://t.co/UuH8Yr6VFH

— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) August 19, 2020

The state’s energy system operator, California Independent System Operator (CAISO), issued a Stage 3 emergency for the first time in 20 years which allows them to institute rotating outages to deal with high power demands, per a Friday statement.

CAISO said the blackouts are due to the unexpected loss of a 470-megawatt power plant, as well as a loss of nearly 1,000 megawatts of wind power in another statement on Saturday.

Californians are experiencing record high temperatures, the National Weather Service tweeted Tuesday.

“These are record high temperatures in what is typically one of the hottest times of the year,” the National Weather Service tweeted. “These are dangerous conditions that should be taken seriously to avoid heat-related illness.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Monday press conference that the state’s transition away from fossil fuel is creating “gaps” in California’s energy reliability.

“In the process of the transition, in the process of shutting down, understandably, the desire and need to shut down polluting gas plants … comes the need to have more insurance, comes the need to recognize that there have been — by definition, demonstrably, in the last few days and what we expect over the next few days — gaps in terms of that reliability,” Newsom said.

Environmental activists met with Newsom’s administration in 2019 to discuss decreasing the state’s oil production, the Los Angeles Times reported in April of that year.

“I’m taking a very pragmatic look at it, in scoping this,” Newsom told the LA Times in a 2019 interview. “It’s also an inclusive scoping because it includes people in the industry, that have jobs; communities that are impacted from an environmental justice prism but also from an economic justice prism.”