Limited blackouts ordered in Northern California

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Areas of Northern California were blacked out Sunday after demand for electricity overwhelmed power grid operators for the third day in less than a week.

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The outages, affecting up to 75,000 customers in the Sacramento, Roseville, Turlock and Modesto areas, lasted about 20 minutes.

The Independent System Operator -- which manages 80 percent of the state's electricity grid -- earlier had declared a Stage 3 alert through Monday, an unprecedented action on weekends, when demand usually eases.

Stage 3 alerts are announced when reserves dip below 1.5 percent and allow the grid operators to impose rolling blackouts to cope with demand.

Blackouts imposed Wednesday and Thursday in northern and central California darkened hundreds of thousands of homes and business for up to two hours. The state avoided another round of blackouts Friday and Saturday.

Copyright 2001   The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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