As summer approaches, Imperial Irrigation District advises that, if electricity is in short supply, the district will issue Conserve Alert notifications: the green, yellow, orange and red notifications ask IID energy customers to voluntarily curb electricity use when required.
“Although IID is prepared to meet summer energy load demand, there can be times when supply margins are tight,” said IID General Manager Henry Martinez. “Our customers have been great by reducing consumption when these alerts have been issued.”
IID issued five Conserve Alerts during summer 2021; all were green, indicating that electrical demand was high. Even during tight market conditions and harsh weather IID was able to meet energy demand and avoid rotating power outages.
During August 2021, IID’s energy demand reached an all-time historical peak at 1,135 megawatts. Projections for this summer are similar.
Voluntary conservation by energy customers helps protect the reliability of the electric grid, takes stress off energy infrastructure, aids in avoiding power outages and helps customers lower monthly electric bills.
Alerts are triggered by a loss of generating or transmission equipment, peak electricity demand forecast and persistent heatwaves. Notifications are broadcast over social media platforms, news releases, banner announcements on the IID website, direct email updates to customers and interactive voice response messages.
Energy conservation notifications consist of four stages:
Conserve Alert (Green) – Generally occurs during heat waves when electrical demand is high.
Stage 1 (Yellow) – Energy Contingency Reserve shortfalls exist, or are forecast to occur.
Stage 2 (Orange) – IID has taken mitigating actions and foresees, or has implemented, procedures up to but excluding interruption of firm load commitments.
Stage 3 (Red) – IID is unable to meet contingency reserve or load requirements and load interruption is imminent or in progress.
Customers should follow IID on social media, add their email address through the online bill payment system or the IID Connect mobile app and visit
www.iid.com/ConserveAlert for information.
Customers may also contact IID’s Customer Service Center at 1-800-303-7756 to register their emails.
