Stage 2 emergency declaration lifted for California, no rolling blackouts on Monday

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- There's good news for Californians sweating through this merciless heatwave. The state was able to conserve enough power on Monday to avoid any rolling blackouts.

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) has lifted its Stage 2 Emergency Declaration, which means that the organization does not believe there is a threat of a power shortage.

California is in the middle of a sweltering heat wave that has put a serious strain on the state's power grid. On Friday and Saturday, the power shortage was so dire that utilities had to implement rolling blackouts for the first time in 19 years.

Thankfully on Monday evening, the ISO tweeted that the demand for power had turned out lower than predicted, which meant fewer people had to face outages.

On Monday, the demand for power in California peaked at about 3 pm, consuming 45,169 megawatts (MW) of electricity, just below the forecasted peak of 45,844 MW, according to data on ISO's website, and well below the available capacity of 50,508 MW.

According to ISO, the lower demand is due to lower than expected temperatures in some parts of California, and success in power conservation efforts.

During the weekend, ISO had declared a Stage 3 emergency, issued a statewide Flex Alert, and warned residents to expect rolling power blackouts through Wednesday.

Despite Monday's success, the state could still face rolling blackouts on Tuesday and Wednesday, as the ISO predicts record-breaking demand for power Tuesday.

The ISO is calling on Californians to continue to conserve energy.

Here are some tips it provided:

On Monday, Governor Newsom signed an emergency proclamation aiming to free up energy capacity.

He said the lack of wind to power turbines and clouds obstructing solar arrays made power supplies short but stood by the state's shift to renewable energy.

"We are committed to radically changing the way we produce and consume energy, and we are creating now and have more jobs in this green sector than we do in the fossil fuel space," he said.

RELATED: Gov. Newsom says power outages 'very likely' through Wednesday

Assemblymember Jim Patterson argued that idealogy could leave millions of Californians in the dark.

"We don't have the necessary electricity to keep the lights on, that is political failure," he said.

Patterson said the governor, as well as the legislature, need to start keeping more reliable natural gas plants in the power mix.