California officials ordered the first mandatory blackouts in the state since World War II on Wednesday as an ongoing energy crisis deepened.
The first outages hit northern California as the agency that regulates the state electrical grid struggled to keep the system from collapse.
The blackouts started at approximately 9 p.m Irish time and were expected to last from two to four hours, said a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of two major power utilities in California.
The outages targeted parts of San Francisco's famous Mission District, parts of Oakland, San Jose - the heart of "Silicon Valley," - Fremont and Cupertino.
The blackouts came as operating reserves again fell below one-and-a-half percent of all available power, said Mr Jim Detmers of the California Independent System Operator, the regulating agency.
Mr Detmers said there was simply not enough power being generated in the nation's most populous state, or available from out of state.
"We've come to almost the end of the road here as far as what supply capability is here in California, as well as the imports coming in," he told reporters in a conference call.
In Sacramento, the state assembly passed an emergency bill late yesterday to allow the state to purchase power at fixed, long-term prices and sell it directly to consumers.
The legislation, which must still be approved by state senators, amounts to an admission that California's sweeping 1996 deregulation of the industry has failed.
Underlining the continuing crisis, Southern California Edison, one of the state's two main utilities, declared yesterday it could not make some $596 million in debt repayments.
SCE and Pacific Gas and Electric Company have run up $11 billion in debts and have warned of bankruptcy unless they can pass their higher costs on to consumers.
AFP