State power managers ordered another round of rotating blackouts Tuesday and urged Californians to increase their conservation efforts.

The blackouts -- which began at 9:20 a.m. -- will affect over 125-thousand customers throughout the state.

Jim Detmers of the Independent System Operator in Folsom said electricity supplies are very tight. He said that a two-unit Southern California plant that he had hoped would be back online Tuesday morning has not been fixed. One unit might be back at noon and the second at midnight, Detmers said.

He also said that power imports from the Northwest were down Tuesday morning, but he added that clouds in Northern California might keep temperatures and air-conditioning demand down. SMUD officials said that customers in the southern Sacramento County area would be the first hit. That includes Elk Grove, Laguna and South Sacramento.

Another 4,600 customers in the southeastern portion of Sacramento County up to the Amador and El Dorado County lines including the communities of Rancho Murieta, Wilton and Sheldon will also see outages, according to SMUD. PG&E said that customers in parts of blocks 12 and 13 could see outages. Customers can find out which block they are in by looking at their PG&E bill.

Outages struck statewide Monday without warning, coming in two waves that left more than 1.2 million customers in the dark from San Diego to Sacramento.

"It's clearly the worst day we've ever had in California," said Patrick Dorinson, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which oversees most of the state's power grid. "All Californians are going to realize that this is a statewide problem."

Key Plants Still Offline Intersections in Sacramento jammed, trapped office workers fled through the roof of an elevator in Ventura, and businesses from San Francisco to Silicon Valley hung out "Closed" signs.

"It was quite sudden, with no warning or nothing," said Nina Prommer of Globe Photos Inc., a Beverly Hills-based photo agency. The day started with a noontime Stage 3 alert, the highest level of emergency. The shortages were blamed on a transformer fire and a lack of power from idled plants and out-of-state suppliers. Unseasonably high temperatures - the thermometer soared to 87 degrees in downtown Los Angeles- prompted Californians to crank their air conditioning units, further straining supplies. Power grid operators responded by ordering the first round of outages to last from noon to 4 p.m., with customers unplugged for about an hour over the rotating period. The second wave started around 6 p.m. and lasted through 7:15 p.m. By 9 p.m., officials had canceled the Stage 3 alert and replaced it with a less-severe Stage 2 notice as power reserves approached 5 percent. Grid officials continued the Stage 2 alert into Tuesday morning. Southern California was shocked to be hit by rolling outages. The two previous ones, Jan. 17 and 18, affected only the northern and central parts of the state. California's power woes are far from over. Natural gas supplies are tight, water supplies are down and even higher temps could drive up demand. Adding to the aggravation, the state has lost about 3,100 megawatts of power from plants that use excess heat and steam from industrial sites to create power. A thousand megawatts is about enough to power 1 million homes. The plants say that they can't afford to buy natural gas to operate until they're paid about $1 billion for past sales to the state's two largest utilities - Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison. "If you don't pay people, it's hard to expect them to remain in business indefinitely," said Jan Smutny-Jones, executive director of the Independent Energy Producers. PG&E spokesman Ron Low said that the utility has been making partial payments to alternative power plants but SoCal Edison has made no payments since November. SoCal Edison and PG&E have said that they have lost $13 billion since last year because wholesale electricity prices have soared and the state's 1996 deregulation law prevents the utilities from passing the costs on to ratepayers. With the power crunch showing no signs of abating, Gov. Gray Davis told lawmakers Monday that he will need another $500 million within 10 days for short-term power buys, bringing the state's total power spending to $4.2 billion. The state stepped in to buy power for SoCal Edison and PG&E in January, when the effects of deregulation caused the two utilities' credit to be severely downgraded. It is spending close to $50 million a day.

Additional Resources:

• Visit the SMUD Web site to find out where the next outages will occur.
• Find out about power outages in the Modesto area from the Modesto Irrigation District.

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