As the state suffered through another day in a record heat wave, state energy officials on Monday afternoon declared a Stage Two power emergency, ordering electric utilities to cut off power to specified businesses throughout the state.

The Stage Two power emergency, the first in two years, was declared around 1 p.m. PDT as power consumption passed 50,000 megawatts. Temperatures in many parts of the state soared past 100 degrees and air conditioners were cranked up another notch. A Stage Two power emergency signifies that the state’s electricity reserves had dipped below 5 percent.

Under a Stage Two power alert, the state’s electric utilities can be ordered to implement cutbacks to major power customers who signed up for a program that allows power cutoffs during crises in exchange for lower rates the rest of the time. Southern California Edison, which serves most of Los Angeles County outside the city of Los Angeles, has about 550 major industrial customers signed up on the program.

At 2:45 p.m. Monday, the order came from state grid operators to have Edison implement 500 megawatts of cuts from its major industrial customers. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 homes.

Meanwhile, Edison crews have been busy trying to restore power to about 17,000 customers who lost power in recent days as the heat caused transformers and other equipment to go offline. Los Angeles Department of Water & Power officials said about 16,000 of their customers had been without power.

Officials with Cal-ISO, the state’s power grid operations center, had earlier predicted electricity consumption would reach a record 52,000 megawatts Monday afternoon, shattering the 49,000 megawatt-record reached Saturday and more than 30 percent above previous highs.

Should power reserves dip below 1.5 percent of capacity later Monday afternoon, state power grid operators would call a Stage Three power alert, which would set the stage for the state’s first rolling blackouts since the power crisis of 2001.