Widespread/extended power outages in the greater SF Bay area

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Tom

Tom

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PG&E was blamed, fined and sued for huge wildfires that devastated large communities the last couple of years. In response, PG&E notified residents to expect widespread power outages the next time weather conditions threaten the possibility of downed power lines. The dreaded time has arrived and, starting at midnight tonight (10/8) they'll begin shutting power off to 800,000 customers.

Conditions are such that we're expecting significant wind storms the next few days which, coupled with extremely dry conditions, mean that a downed power line could easily & quickly ignite a wildfire. When it's "safe" to turn power back on, it will take several days because PG&E will need to inspect power lines. A letter previously sent to residents warned that power might be off for up to 7 days.

Meanwhile, Cal Fire has deployed huge resources into the area in an attempt to quickly respond to fires.
 
Ya should have stayed in WY.  ;)

Actually, it was on local news this morning in Indy, so must be pretty big deal.  Be safe, no power always leads to hectic conditions.
 
Wow, a whole week of candle light dinners!  That will attract droves of people to move to there! Oh wait, candles may be dangerous, better get out the glow sticks..... ;D ???
 
We're on the east side of the Sierras, and Southern Cal Edison is our power provider.  We've already had 2 days of cautionary power shutoffs due to high winds this summer.  They ain't fooling around.  The last one was like 24 hours, but since we live in the coach it had minimal impact on us.  It was time to exercise the generator anyway.
 
I considered moving the coach to our front door, so we could at least cook and make coffee. I'd need to do that before power went out in this area, otherwise I wouldn't be able to open the electric door to the storage bay  :(

OTOH we could just walk down the ramp and fire up the generator on the boat. Better get the gen starting battery charged  ???

Meanwhile, of the 34 affected Bay area counties, not every town/city in those counties will lose power. Currently, PG&E's outage map shows that the outage doesn't quite reach our community, but it can change with the weather.
 
I have friends in Petaluma, and they described a shopping frenzy similar to that before hurricanes! While their home is on the same line as a hospital and not in danger of being shut off, his business is shut down and the school his wife works at is closed. If it goes on long, there will be a big economic impact. And I do love the exercise generator! Should have used one of those for the kid?s phones.
 
Wow, a whole 20 watts of standby power!

Real Goods and their Solar Living Center in Hopland, CA has had demonstration human powered generators set up for a decade or longer.  They raised the rear wheel of an exercise bicycle and coupled it to a permanent magnet generator.  Frantic flat out pedaling would produce about 100 watts.

As part of an Emergency Broadcast System project at the KCBS transmitter in Novato, FEMA installed 5000 gallons of diesel fuel storage so the transmitter could stay on the air and let the President communicate with the country in case of an attack that took out normal lines of communications.  The transmitter is in the PG&E blackout area so the generator is probably running now.  FEMA figured 5000 gallons would run the 250 KW generator for about a month.  After we replaced the transmitter with a more efficient one, I ran the numbers and found we had more like 3 months worth of fuel storage.
 
PG&E  needs to be sued again.  They have an obligation to deliver.

The issue in the big fire was not that the lines slapped things in the storm but rather that PG&E had not done needed maintenance to protect the lines (Tree Trimming) so now instead of trimming the trees they are punishing their customers.

Time to put in solar power and tell PG&E to "Go Climb a Pole"
 
There's enough blame to go around to all parties.  When I lived in the area, PG&E often got strong pushback including lawsuits from local residents against their tree trimming program, claiming it ruined heritage trees.  CA's forests are largely man-made (trees were stripped clear in the 1850s to support the Gold Rush) and they gave up maintaining them a couple of decades ago when habitat concerns shut down the timber industry.  This along with extreme fire suppression has allowed new growth underbrush to build up to dangerous levels, letting what would otherwise be an easily controllable brush fire climb into the tree crowns amd become a much more dangerous crown fire.

It's going to take decades to get CA's forestry practices under control.
 
John From Detroit said:
Time to put in solar power and tell PG&E to "Go Climb a Pole"
Click to expand...


The utilities are very aware of the threat to their monopolies by consumer rooftop solar - the only competition they have. The moment batteries become good enough and cheap enough so that consumers won't need to 'store' excess production via net metering buyback (eliminated by utilities in many states), the electric monopolies will be broken. I'm hoping this happens before they lobby Congress to prevent consumers from cutting the cord.
 
That's why PGE needs to be broken out of its monopoly, they have no competition. My power went out exactly at 12:00 am
...I was lucky I have a backup gen I bought last year...most frustrating is how long are the power outages..
 
From the PG&E website:

"106,681 circuit miles of electric distribution lines and 18,466 circuit miles of interconnected transmission lines. 42,141 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines and 6,438 miles of transmission pipelines."

 
Arch Hoagland said:
From the PG&E website:

"106,681 circuit miles of electric distribution lines and 18,466 circuit miles of interconnected transmission lines. 42,141 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines and 6,438 miles of transmission pipelines."
Click to expand...


If they weren't up to the task they should have given the highly lucrative monopoly arrangement to an entity that is. (Buyer after purchasing high rise: "there are so many windows to wash!")
 
Tom said:
I considered moving the coach to our front door, so we could at least cook and make coffee. I'd need to do that before power went out in this area, otherwise I wouldn't be able to open the electric door to the storage bay  :(

.
Click to expand...

If the power is out for your garage door opener you might just use an extension cord to get power from your generator to open the door.

You might want to preposition an extension cord above the coach hanging from the ceiling if it is hard to get to the garage door opener plug.  You might use the extension during the time while you are at risk of losing power.

Not an elegant solution, but a practical one.

Hopefully opening the other door would give you fresh air for the brief time needed to run your generator.

Just an idea.
 
A public utility has no competition by law, but their rates and profits get regulated by the state in exchange for the monopoly.  That's based on the premise that competitive power companies in every town or neighborhood would be an infrastructure nightmare.  That was probably true a century ago, but many of the issues could be solved now with standard for power systems so that all could interconnect. That's how home-generated power is managed today.

I think Lou has the best summary of the PGE situation - plenty of blame to go around. The state and the CA municipalities have been pummeling PGE (and other utilities) for years with NIMBY and environmental lawsuits that make it near impossible to improve service or even maintain the existing services. Now the bill is coming due, and it hurts.  I'm confident, though, that the PGE execs are gleefully inflicting pain as a means of driving their lesson home and extracting concessions.
 
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