California PG&E "public safety power shutoffs"

[Mike90250]

If you are not located in Northern California, you may not know about the "public safety power shutoffs" . This is caused by decades of deferred or ignored maintenance of the transmission lines and switchgear, which has started to fail in spectacular fashion during high winds. (the wind blows the gear down, or blows a tree onto the lines) Then fires start, whipped by the wind, and whole cities get burned.
So, now in high wind conditions, areas with "susceptible" wires, will be intentionally "blacked out" as the power is cut to cities. (link to yellow sharpie map)

https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/psps-event-maps.page

After the winds calm down, all the lines get inspected before they can be re-energized. So a 24hr wind event can take an additional 3 days to inspect before power returns. During that time, cell towers shut down, cable TV repeaters shut down, and all comms cease.
So Wed, Oct 9th, is the next forecast shutdown, and about 6 hours later, we loose internet. So, I may be off-line Wed - ??

The cities & Counties have issued pages of lists, of business that may be open, if their generators work. No gas stations will be selling gas !

7DayPSPSPotential1007191020.png

[bcroe]

If you are not located in Northern California, you may not know about the "public safety power shutoffs" . This is caused by decades of deferred or ignored maintenance of the transmission lines and switchgear, which has started to fail in spectacular fashion during high winds. (the wind blows the gear down, or blows a tree onto the lines) Then fires start, whipped by the wind, and whole cities get burned.
So, now in high wind conditions, areas with "susceptible" wires, will be intentionally "blacked out" as the power is cut to cities. (link to yellow sharpie map)

https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/psps-event-maps.page

After the winds calm down, all the lines get inspected before they can be re-energized. So a 24hr wind event can take an additional 3 days to inspect before power returns. During that time, cell towers shut down, cable TV repeaters shut down, and all comms cease.
So Wed, Oct 9th, is the next forecast shutdown, and about 6 hours later, we loose internet. So, I may be off-line Wed - ??

The cities & Counties have issued pages of lists, of business that may be open, if their generators work. No gas stations will be selling gas !

Welcome to the 18th century! Net metering shut down too. Guess the HAMs will become the
communication centers, though land lines ought to still work and perhaps get back some respect.
Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

Welcome to the 18th century! Net metering shut down too. Guess the HAMs will become the
communication centers, though land lines ought to still work and perhaps get back some respect.
Bruce Roe

I am curious about the area in White in the middle of the state. Will that area also see power outages and if not then why?

[J.P.M.]

Watch for more generators flying off store shelves starting about 1 hr. after the power goes out.

I'd also suspect the probability of house fires and other clamities may well increase if/as extended power outages meet ignorance.

I don't think this will come to a good end.

Mike: I can do little in the way of on site help but is there anything any of us can do with respect to temporarily assist. with your SPT/mod. chores if you become incommunicado (besides not haranguing each other) ?

Good luck,

J.P.M.

[Mike90250]

The center of the state, is the food belt (central valley), which has had all the water drained, and sent to the citys for their use. So nothing much there to burn

SDG&E, SoCalEdison are also on the same bandwagon, cut the power to the people !

[Salts]

I would think the cell towers have backup systems in place. Once the phone companies start losing money due to non-service complaints, I'm guessing they'll install solar backup power systems or some other form of backup that can keep the tower going for an extended period.

When all those people start buying generators, they're going to be very unhappy when it fails to run after sitting in storage for 6 months or a year because of the ethanol.

[foo1bar]

Test
I replied to this thread and it first said "Pending Approval" with a green shaded box over my post. Now it says "Unapproved" and its still shaded. And yet, when I posted the word "TEST" it works fine.

HUH???

Possibly you had a link in your post - and because you don't have many posts it waits for someone to approve the post/link.

I am curious about the area in White in the middle of the state

The white part in the middle of the map is the central valley.
It is a pretty flat area. It has fairly good road access. It has very little for large trees (some orchards, but not 80' tall pines that might be blown into powerlines). So it probably won't have power shutoff on lines that are in that area, as there's not a high risk of fire, and what fires could possibly start should be easy to detect quickly and take care of.
I don't know what it has for power plants supplying it - I expect that wires going in/out of the valley could be powered down if they're going through spots that could have a fire risk. So towns/farms in the valley could also lose power I think. IMO it's not really clear what exactly this map is supposed to show.

[Ampster]

I got the notice too. I'm not worried about getting gas, and it will be a chance to see how far I can push my old Nissan Leaf batteries on my Skybox. I am going to let my neighbors know that I will have power to share until the sun goes down. We don't have much wind yet in the Sonoma Valley.

[Salts]

I got the notice too. I'm not worried about getting gas, and it will be a chance to see how far I can push my old Nissan Leaf batteries on my Skybox. I am going to let my neighbors know that I will have power to share until the sun goes down. We don't have much wind yet in the Sonoma Valley.

How much capacity do your leaf batteries hold and how much do you need? Do you pull that much juice after the sun goes down?

[Ampster]

I think I have about 10 kWhrs. My usage after solar drops off is about 300 Watts

[Salts]

I think I have about 10 kWhrs. My usage after solar drops off is about 300 Watts

That's about what I figure I will get out of my Chevy Volt batteries. When the grid goes down, we'll go into AC Coupling mode so the house runs directly off the panels during the day. I know for a fact that we draw between 17 and 18 kWh per day and most of that is during the day. The Chevy batteries should carry me all night without breaking a sweat.

[Ampster]

I have 2kW of panels on my Skybox hybrid inverter and that is enough to chage my batteries in the morning and carry me through the rest of the day. I am still waiting for Outback to release firmware upgrade so I can AC couple my 5.7 kW grid tie system.
I would only need that amount of power to run my AC and charge my car. I just got back from dinner and every gas station has long lines with people filling up because with no power tomorrow there will be no gas to pump. I am foolishly charging my car at peak rate of $0.53 per kWhr just to make sure I have enough Coulombs to get out of town if in unlikely event I have to evacuate.

[emartin00]

I would think the cell towers have backup systems in place. Once the phone companies start losing money due to non-service complaints, I'm guessing they'll install solar backup power systems or some other form of backup that can keep the tower going for an extended period.

When all those people start buying generators, they're going to be very unhappy when it fails to run after sitting in storage for 6 months or a year because of the ethanol.

Cell towers typically do have small backup batteries to help them ride through short power outages. More remote ones will also have a standby generator.
If they have never had power issues in this area, many of them probably will still drop offline after a day or so.

Ethanol is not hard to deal with. Not sure why everyone thinks it's the worst thing ever. Add a little stabil and drain your carb and you won't have any issues.

[BoloMKXXVIII]

Ethanol is not hard to deal with. Not sure why everyone thinks it's the worst thing ever. Add a little stabil and drain your carb and you won't have any issues.

Ethanol is tough on equipment not built to handle it. It also contributes to water issues and most stabilizers really don't do much to mitigate the problem. Ethanol from corn was a political decision. Lobbyists rarely (never) make the best choices for the country as a whole. There are enough people around the world that would love to have the corn to eat instead of turning it into fuel. I only burn recreational fuel through the small air cooled engines I maintain. Not using ethanol and draining the carb solves most run problems.

[SunEagle]

I just got a news flash that about 500,000 people were without power in northern CA. I hope people stay safe. I also wonder how true the news flash was.