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PSA: PG&E announces potential for blackouts due to high winds for Bay Area and Central Valley

We’re you affected by the power outage?

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svreef said:
Just got this now:


PG&E Outage Alert: Due to extreme heat and high demand that may be greater than supply, the state's electric grid operator (CAISO) may require PG&E to turn off power in rotating outages from 3-10pm each day from August 17-20. Outages typically last 1 - 2 hours. Please conserve. More info: pge.com/conserve or caiso.com
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Yeah the left a voice mail with me last night, although they said from August 16 through August 28th. I'm assuming they're just covering their basis by telling everyone this may happen.

But still, San Francisco "extreme heat" is when it hits 80, so I guess it's been extreme, except the differences is electrically speaking we don't really use more power on days like this... well ok homes dont I'm sure businesses typically have climate control in them and they will. Still not a fan of rolling blackouts being told to "share the pain" due in largely to others, kind of like when we were told to conserve water by cutting back some percentage, which for my minimal water usage already was not exactly an easy thing to do, meanwhile you have those with the football field worth of green lawns that cutting 20% at worse means their lawn isn't as green.

If it wasn't the fact that these happen maybe once a year, I would consider something like a Tesla powerwall to keep me powered up, but to be honest it's just not worth the cost, hell a generator is even pushing it as far as cost/benefit ratio.
 
The planned safety outages are different than the rolling blackouts. The former are initiated by PG&E because they don’t want to start a fire and get sued. They are planned ahead of schedule.

The latter are a bit more spontaneous. They follow supply/demand. And sometimes they happen because a power plant goes down and there’s less supply.
 
No that only when we are doing public safety shut offs. The rotating shut off isn’t because of public safety it’s the state thats forcing everybody to do just not Pge also SoCal and Edison is doing it too.
 
I'm not sure how the rest of the bay area is handling things but it most definitely is not hot here. It's windy, there's quite a bit of humidity in the air, it's cool but not cold (due to wind) replace the ugly SF houses with palm trees and I would think I was in Hawaii around Dec/Jan :D
 
sfsuphysics said:
I'm not sure how the rest of the bay area is handling things but it most definitely is not hot here. It's windy, there's quite a bit of humidity in the air, it's cool but not cold (due to wind) replace the ugly SF houses with palm trees and I would think I was in Hawaii around Dec/Jan :D
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75° and 59% humidity for me. Not bad, feels tropical! Hopefully windows open will help me see some nice pH too, haha
 
100-110 every day for us since Friday. It’s been brutal. Actually dangerous.

I’m not surprised they need to do rolling blackouts to stabilize the grid. I do agree that doing the rolling blackouts in areas that are using more electricity per household or business makes more sense from a standpoint of minimizing fewer people, up to a point. The problem is, what is that point and who decides? Also, looking at it from the other point of view, people in 110F heat can die when you turn off their power for a few hours, whereas those in 80F heat just complain. In the end it’s less contentious to just have everyone bear their share of the burden to avoid having to decide exactly where to draw the line. Also from a practical point of view they can’t get that granular when doing rolling blackouts so they couldn’t only target high-users.

I think it is important for all the anti-PGE folks to realize this is not coming from PGE, it is coming from CAISO (http://www.caiso.com/), which is in charge of making sure our grid is safe and stable. It’s actually a pretty cool system, I toured their NorCal headquarters and control room a couple years ago. They are some of the unsung heroes of our modern electrical age.

Anyway, it is CAISO telling PGE and all the other utilities and generating systems what they need to do in times of crisis to stabilize the grid so all of our appliances, computers, and other systems don’t fry. You should be thanking them, not moaning or shaking clenched fists.

It would be nice to get more specific advanced notice though.
 
Maybe they should be telling these companies to be building out more renewable energy infrastructure with all the money they charge us to keep up with demand. Instead they’d rather not maintain their equipment or perform tests like they are supposed to and pocket the money. Suck it pge
 
Wlachnit said:
Yeah...if PG&E weren’t so mismanaged, then CAISO’s job would be easier
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They aren't the only electric utility in the state. If demand is higher than capacity they have to stabilize the grid. The heat has been awful the past few days.
 
JVU said:
I’m not surprised they need to do rolling blackouts to stabilize the grid. I do agree that doing the rolling blackouts in areas that are using more electricity per household or business makes more sense from a standpoint of minimizing fewer people, up to a point. The problem is, what is that point and who decides? Also, looking at it from the other point of view, people in 110F heat can die when you turn off their power for a few hours, whereas those in 80F heat just complain. In the end it’s less contentious to just have everyone bear their share of the burden to avoid having to decide exactly where to draw the line. Also from a practical point of view they can’t get that granular when doing rolling blackouts so they couldn’t only target high-users.
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Well I think the first to lose power absolutely need to be businesses, they sign up for the commercial rates that are lower than residential with the understanding if power needs to be cut in cases like this they're first to go. No don't get me wrong I don't think people's lives should be put in jeopardy for my convenience either, but they do say outages last 1-2 hours probably a little lower side if they are in these ultrahot regions (my in-laws farm I think they said it got to 115 there) which is probably why they'll roll through them, one area shut the windows and close the drapes you can go an hour without AC, etc. And I agree they probably can't get granular with the deciding who, although those smart meters supposedly can tell them who's using "more than normal", but maybe do a region by region area, I mean if for instance the entire LA basin ended up sucking the entire California output of power while NorCal largely is normal should NorCal "share the burden" ?

Either way, fish tanks aside, stay safe people.
 
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