Commentary As California accelerates to a clean energy future state, officials are running into a stark reality: The transition to green energy is spawning an increasing frequency of blackouts and potential blackouts. Consumers read “Flex Power Alerts” on highway and freeway signs, but have little idea how precarious the problem has become, or why it is spreading. The tip of the iceberg resides almost completely with the issue of renewable energy’s “intermittency,” which refers to the unpredictable and erratic electric production by wind and solar resources whose power output fails to match California’s minute-to-minute electricity demand variations. The resulting voltage imbalances across California’s electric grid manifest as blackouts. Allowing for declining hydroelectric production attributable to drought, the last of which ended 2016, today’s blackout issue was all but non-existent until California began transitioning away from a steady flow of energy produced by base load generators such as gas-fired power plants …