HEAT WAVE: California grid officials say residents’ response to a text message asking them to conserve power averted rolling blackouts during the heat wave’s Tuesday peak. (Los Angeles Times)

ALSO:
• A miscommunication between California’s grid operator and a utility group leads to unnecessary rolling outages in several cities in the northern part of the state. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• California battery storage facilities discharged power before they were needed during the heat wave’s peak, leaving them unable to provide backup when solar output fell later that day. (Bloomberg)
• A substation failure leaves thousands of customers in California’s Silicon Valley without power, including a hospital whose backup generators failed. (Mercury News)
• Pacific Gas & Electric begins paying customers during heat waves to conserve power when demand is at its highest. (ABC7)
• Wyoming utilities ask customers to conserve electricity to relieve grid stress during the prolonged heat wave gripping much of the West. (Cowboy State Daily)

OIL & GAS:
• An oil and gas industry group plans to appeal a federal judge’s order upholding the Biden administration’s right to pause oil and gas lease sales while evaluating their environmental impacts. (Casper Star-Tribune)  
• Los Alamos National Laboratory leads a federal team identifying and evaluating the environmental impact of hundreds of thousands of undocumented orphaned oil and gas wells. (news release)
• An industry-commissioned report predicts the oil and gas sector will add $29 billion annually to New Mexico’s economy by 2050, but economists warn against over-relying on the volatile sector. (Carlsbad Current-Argus) 

CLEAN ENERGY:
• Arizona advocates predict Inflation Reduction Act provisions could bring more than 82,000 clean energy jobs to the state in the next five years. (Arizona Republic) 
• While some Native American leaders say the Inflation Reduction Act will aid tribal nations on the front lines of climate change, others worry about its incentives for mining and other extractive industries. (High Country News)

UTILITIES: A southern California community choice power agency disputes allegations that it lacks transparency and approves $200 million in power purchases with limited public input. (Voice of OC)   

WIND: Wyoming county and municipalities seek $1.99 million from the developer of a proposed wind power facility to offset their anticipated costs from the project. (Oil City News)  

TRANSPORTATION: Utah’s transportation department proposes constructing the world’s longest gondola to ease traffic on a highway to a ski area near Salt Lake City. (Outside)

NUCLEAR: Pacific Gas & Electric applies for up to $6 billion in U.S. Energy Department funding to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant running beyond its planned 2025 retirement. (San Diego Union-Tribune) 

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Jonathan hails from southwestern Colorado and has been writing about the land, cultures, and communities of the Western United States for more than two decades. He compiles the Western Energy News digest. He is the author of three books, a contributing editor at High Country News, and the editor of the Land Desk, an e-newsletter that provides coverage and context on issues critical to the West.