5 ms·

The dark side of this is, what if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? What if the cost of retrofitting those lines is greater than

The dark side of this is, what if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? What if the cost of retrofitting those lines is greater than the total future amortized profit from servicing those customers during wildfire conditions? I don't think there's a law on the books requiring that everyone have access to electrical service (like there is for, say, USPS service). Maybe beefy solar setups with battery banks and ability to run off-grid will start becoming the norm there. It is California, after all; it's a great place for solar. Heck, it might easily be cheaper for PG&E to subsidize the installation of these systems vs committing to maintaining all those lines properly in perpetuity.

deleted 7y ago
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chroem- 7y ago
>I don't think there's a law on the books requiring that everyone have access to electrical service As far as I'm aware, that's the main point of having a regulated power utility. They have to deliver universal service.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Do they though? If I build a new house in the middle of nowhere, is the utility required to spend tens of millions of dollars to build out new infrastructure to serve just me? My understanding is they aren't.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Without looking up the specific California laws, a typical way such obligations were implemented was to require regulatory approval for discontinuing existing lines. So it’s not symmetric for new versus existing lines.
    - azernik 7y ago
      Assuming one were interested in looking up such laws, how would one go about it? I've been poking away at the Google machine with no luck.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    We are talking about incorporated townships, though. So, more like an organized group of users in the middle of nowhere, but do have rights as a recognized municipality of the state.
  - ghouse 7y ago
    If you want electricity, you may be required to pay them to extend the infrastructure to your house in the middle of nowhere (at your cost) and then they are required to provide you power and maintain the infrastructure (and assume the liability). If other people begin using the infrastructure within a set period of time, you will receive partial refund for the upfront expense.
lacker 7y ago
What if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? This is almost definitely the case. Consider that PG+E just went bankrupt from fire costs. If you split PG+E into two parts, the "safe utility" that served urban areas, and the "risky utility" that served rural areas, the fire costs would almost all go to the "risky utility". If they were allowed to, PG+E would be better off simply dropping every customer more than 60 miles away from San Francisco. But it just doesn't work that way. PG+E is technically a public company, but the customers they are required to serve and the prices they are allowed to charge are so heavily regulated, it often seems more like it's a complicated extension of the California government.
- njarboe 7y ago
  Pretty much all of California urban areas have fire danger so no area is really "safe". The Santa Rosa and Oakland fires come to mind, along with all of the LA hill blazes that threaten the city most years.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> The dark side of this is, what if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? PG&E is a regulated regional monopoly with a universal service mandate within it's service area that has huge piles of money to throw at political fights to stop having public power retailers take over some of it's service areas, so it can just suck up the cost of dealing with uneconomical rural customers as the cost of the privilege of being allowed to own profitable urban and suburban customers it is willing to fight for.
- chewbacha 7y ago
  > has huge piles of money Do you have evidence for this? I assumed going bankrupt is a pretty large piece of evidence against this argument.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    The piles of money they've pulled out for exactly that purpose whenever it has come up, before and between the two bankruptcies.
pixl97 7y ago
Maybe this is just another sign that people should stop building in the wildland urban interface. Not that they will. We as a country feel quite entitled to build in unsafe places.
dehrmann 7y ago
> it might easily be cheaper for PG&E to subsidize the installation of these systems vs committing to maintaining all those lines properly in perpetuity. With how liability works in California, I'd be really curious to see.
tibyat 7y ago
this was mentioned in the article. they are required to service those areas.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chroem- 7y ago

>I don't think there's a law on the books requiring that everyone have access to electrical service As far as I'm aware, that's the main point of having a regulated power utility. They have to deliver universal service.

CydeWeys 7y ago
Do they though? If I build a new house in the middle of nowhere, is the utility required to spend tens of millions of dollars to build out new infrastructure to serve just me? My understanding is they aren't.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Without looking up the specific California laws, a typical way such obligations were implemented was to require regulatory approval for discontinuing existing lines. So it’s not symmetric for new versus existing lines.
  - azernik 7y ago
    Assuming one were interested in looking up such laws, how would one go about it? I've been poking away at the Google machine with no luck.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  We are talking about incorporated townships, though. So, more like an organized group of users in the middle of nowhere, but do have rights as a recognized municipality of the state.
- ghouse 7y ago
  If you want electricity, you may be required to pay them to extend the infrastructure to your house in the middle of nowhere (at your cost) and then they are required to provide you power and maintain the infrastructure (and assume the liability). If other people begin using the infrastructure within a set period of time, you will receive partial refund for the upfront expense.

lacker 7y ago

What if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? This is almost definitely the case. Consider that PG+E just went bankrupt from fire costs. If you split PG+E into two parts, the "safe utility" that served urban areas, and the "risky utility" that served rural areas, the fire costs would almost all go to the "risky utility". If they were allowed to, PG+E would be better off simply dropping every customer more than 60 miles away from San Francisco. But it just doesn't work that way. PG+E is technically a public company, but the customers they are required to serve and the prices they are allowed to charge are so heavily regulated, it often seems more like it's a complicated extension of the California government.

njarboe 7y ago
Pretty much all of California urban areas have fire danger so no area is really "safe". The Santa Rosa and Oakland fires come to mind, along with all of the LA hill blazes that threaten the city most years.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> The dark side of this is, what if it's not economical at all to service these outlying customers? PG&E is a regulated regional monopoly with a universal service mandate within it's service area that has huge piles of money to throw at political fights to stop having public power retailers take over some of it's service areas, so it can just suck up the cost of dealing with uneconomical rural customers as the cost of the privilege of being allowed to own profitable urban and suburban customers it is willing to fight for.

chewbacha 7y ago
> has huge piles of money Do you have evidence for this? I assumed going bankrupt is a pretty large piece of evidence against this argument.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  The piles of money they've pulled out for exactly that purpose whenever it has come up, before and between the two bankruptcies.

pixl97 7y ago

Maybe this is just another sign that people should stop building in the wildland urban interface. Not that they will. We as a country feel quite entitled to build in unsafe places.

dehrmann 7y ago

> it might easily be cheaper for PG&E to subsidize the installation of these systems vs committing to maintaining all those lines properly in perpetuity. With how liability works in California, I'd be really curious to see.

tibyat 7y ago

this was mentioned in the article. they are required to service those areas.