To keep the juice flowing smoothly when a heat wave hit earlier this month, the Department of Water cut its sizable load and increased hydro output. Twice on Aug. 8 DWR shut off its massive water pumps and boosted its hydropower output to help grid reliability. It dropped 135 MWh at 4:30 p.m. and increased by 27 MWh the generation at its hydro plant in San Bernardino, said Tio Zasso, department chief of state water project operations. The supply was bid into the California Independent System Operator’s resource adequacy market. A little over an hour later that day, DWR bid in additional supplies. It dropped 137 MWh by turning off its pumps and ramped up by 10 MWh the hydro output at its Double Canyon plant. In spite of the recent triple digit temperatures and high demand, the grid operator never directly sought load shedding from DWR or other suppliers, said Steven Greenlee, grid operator spokesperson. The state agency’s revenue gain from bidding capacity into the resource adequacy market is not yet available.