Trump Falsely Claims California Democrats Intentionally Behind Rolling Blackouts

Democrats are not behind the power outages, which were instead implemented intentionally by the California Independent System Operator, a non-profit public benefit corporation that oversees the state’s power grid.

California’s grid has shifted in recent years to renewable sources of energy like solar and wind—but those sources usually decline at night, creating a shortfall typically filled by importing electricity from other Western states or depending on the few natural gas and nuclear power plants still operating.

But the normal system collapsed on Friday because a historic heat wave across the Western U.S. created skyrocketing demand to keep air conditioners on, while a power plant went offline Friday, “weather conditions limited some wind and solar supplies” and other states couldn’t spare extra energy because they had their own demand surges to worry about, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Trump and some business leaders have blamed the shift to renewables for the blackouts, though CIASO CEO Steve Berberich said Monday it was actually the fault of the California Public Utilities Commission, a state agency overseeing private utilities, for not mandating the operator keep enough reserve supplies.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called for investigation into the blackout on Monday, saying they were “unacceptable and unbefitting of the nation’s largest and most innovative state.”

CAISO did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.