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The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has decided it wants to revise downward the price it is prepared to pay for new grid-tied ground-based micro electricity generation, opening negotiations with a new suggested price of 58.8 cents per kWh.

In a press release issued on July 2, 2010, Colin Anderson, CEO of the OPA is quoted as saying "The OPA believes the new price category is fair, reasonable, more accurately reflects the costs associated with ground-mounted projects and maintains the long-term stability of the program. It enables the program to continue to meet its original goals and provides proper value to both generators and ratepayers."

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has decided it wants to revise downward the price it is prepared to pay for new grid-tied ground-based micro electricity generation, opening negotiations with a new suggested price of 58.8 cents per kWh.

In a press release issued on July 2, 2010, Colin Anderson, CEO of the OPA is quoted as saying "The OPA believes the new price category is fair, reasonable, more accurately reflects the costs associated with ground-mounted projects and maintains the long-term stability of the program. It enables the program to continue to meet its original goals and provides proper value to both generators and ratepayers."

Electricity is all around us. It lifts elevators, pumps gas, lights rooms, cooks food, and even powers a growing fleet of cars. We generally take the vast electric grid for granted until it turns off. Only then do we realize how important it is. Blackouts owing to technical foul-ups are bad enough, but new hazards, some malicious and some from nature, threaten to create electrical disturbances on an unprecedented scale.

New legislation, passed June 9 by the U.S. House of Representatives and referred to the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources committee, hopes to strengthen the grid’s robustness against attacks of many kinds. The immediate aim of the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act is to direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the main federal agency responsible for electricity matters, to establish security rules for utilities and other energy companies.

Mylar balloon caused blackout to thousands in Watsonville

WATSONVILLE - A power outage that left thousands of Watsonville residents without power Thursday evening was caused by a mylar balloon drifting into a powerline, PG&E spokesman Kory Raftery said Friday.

The outage occurred around 4:40 p.m. and affected a large part of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. About 3,000 customers were without power while crews worked to repair the disrupted electrical service.

Statewide, metallic balloons striking power lines cause 100-150 power outages a year, Raftery said.

PALM DESERT, Calif.—Residents of nearly 4,000 homes in the Southern California desert sweltered in 108-degree temperatures because of a transformer failed and cut power for more than 16 hours.

The outage hit a Southern California Edison substation on Monday at 4:47 a.m., cutting power to a large portion of Palm Desert until repairs were completed at 9:23 p.m.

Students at Ronald Reagan Elementary School were sent home at about 10:45 a.m. because classrooms got to hot without air conditioning.

By midday, Palm Desert officials opened cooling centers.