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PG&E may cut power to 850k California customers this weekend due to fire risk
- dmix 7y agoAre they under pressure from regulators or courts to never start another fire again or something?
- joeyrideout 7y agoFrom my cursory understanding, they are not under direct pressure but recent legal fines have implicitly made the risks of remaining operational sky-high. What did the litigators think would happen?
- kllrnohj 7y ago> What did the litigators think would happen? That PG&E would stop paying out dividends instead of doing the maintenance they are supposed to be doing? https://www.kqed.org/news/11737336/judge-pge-paid-out-stock-dividends-instead-of-trimming-trees https://www.kqed.org/news/11737336/judge-pge-paid-out-stock-...
- jjoonathan 7y agoThen how about prohibiting dividends, buybacks, and bonuses until they are ready to accept liability -- or some other way of structuring this regulation other than imposing contradictory requirements on them that force blackouts?
- albertop 7y agoUtilities are heavily regulated. Each year, budget has to be approved by Sacramento.
- njarboe 7y agoNot fines so much, but payments to insurance companies and others who suffered loses in fires found to be started by PG&E power lines.
- Data_Junkie 7y agoThat the age old failure of leadership could be blamed on the greed of the corporation. They are all complicit, ain't nothin' new.
- tssva 7y agoMy guess is the ultimate end game is to get the state to pass a law shielding them from liability if they do start another. "Shield us from liability and we will stop the blackouts."
- huntermeyer 7y agoYep. That's what they do.
- AWildC182 7y agoThis is the end game^ This of course can't end poorly as the second such a bill is passed, all incentive to maintain equipment goes out the window.
- rndgermandude 7y agoThe state should (i.e. probably will not) counter by throwing a few of their execs in jail for their role in starting fires due to failure to maintain their stuff aka gross negligence.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoBut the houses were built next to this tinderbox. They were going to burn eventually.
- hackeraccount 7y agoThat. Is that really case? I mean honestly. I really suspect that a large part of the problem is the desire for people to have a house in the woods but I'm unclear as to how you could quantify that suspicion. Or who has.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoThe fact that they burned is proof. As t -> infinity, the probability of a wildfire approaches 1, even without electricity.
- tomohawk 7y agoThis is the case that established unlimited liability for PG&E regardless of any determination of negligence on its part or staff. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1223894.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1223894.html CA legislators could pass a law changing this.
- whalesalad 7y agoYeah that’s what happens when you’re held liable for damages caused by a fire.
- tedivm 7y agoThat's what happens when you don't maintain your equipment or the land around it and cause fires as a result- you get held responsible for it.
- reaperducer 7y agoYou say "potato," he says, "spud."
- likpok 7y agoThe state law is particularly nasty to PGE: utilities are liable for damages even if they aren't negligent.
- jyounker 7y agoFor years they have been deferring maintenance in order to pay out dividends and buy back stock. They have been negligent.
- dmix 7y agoThat's easier said than done when you talking about the biggest economic state and most populous are in the country going dark. The costs could wayyy higher than any forest fire.
- Decade 7y agoYes, bankruptcy court. If they are liable for another fire before they get out of bankruptcy, then the victims of the new fire will be paid before existing victims, creditors, and shareholders. https://twitter.com/jared_ellias/status/1187523144505937921 https://twitter.com/jared_ellias/status/1187523144505937921
- sliken 7y agoNo, it's just cheaper to cut power (doubly so when you ask the state to pay for it and just pocket it) than it is to actually do the work of maintaining the safe gaps between power lines and trees.
- msandford 7y agoSounds like they're not really a utility anymore.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoI’m not defending them... but what are the chances that the state mismanagement of forestry leading to an excess of fuel that WILL eventually burn, and their hefty fines for the previous fire have made the power company cautious to the point that delivering service is a dangerous business prospective? Is a utility forced to make decisions that could put the entire company at risk? IDK. I’m asking.
- fivethr33 7y agoTheir decision should be based on delivering power and maintaining the system. It shouldn't be based on profit or any sort of business prospective.
- onezerozeroone 7y agohttps://www.independent.co.uk/environment/california-wildfires-trump-tweet-malibu-camp-fire-woolsey-hill-ventura-county-a8629801.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/california-wildfir...
- Animats 7y agoYes, I know. I may get a power shutoff. It's not for all of California. In Silicon Valley, it's mostly west of I-280, although my own area, about 2 miles east of I-280 in San Mateo County, is on warning status.
- Rebelgecko 7y agoUnless I'm reading it wrong it looks like the "Power shutoff potential" is elevated or higher for all of their CA territory
- nostrademons 7y agoYou're reading it wrong. Most of the denser urban areas are excluded, including SF and most of urbanized Silicon Valley; the reporter tweeting this sensationalized it. Here's the actual map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=64ec74b4d46f43eab0cbd813fdc80f4f https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=64ec74b4d4...
- bsamuels 7y agothat map is a lot more damning from a visual perspective, even if it doesnt capture that many people
- murph 7y agoRight near 92 and 101 here - pretty urban - and we're on "possibly in the next 24-36 hours"
- vinylkey 7y agoHopefully this leads to the state getting good deal in the inevitable public takeover.
- mmanfrin 7y agoHonestly, I hope this leads to the state having cause to take it over with no cost. Stakeholders need to bear the burden of the organizations abysmal record.
- jeffdavis 7y agoI'm not blaming all of these fires on PGE. The state is simply not resilient to fire -- the smallest fires quickly become infernos. They deserve some blame, of course. Clearly arson is wrong, and so is negligence. But how negligent are they really being? It seems like the latest fire was caused by a tower that was regularly inspected.
- thaumaturgy 7y agohttps://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-cited-for-late-maintenance-work-more-often-12303697.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-cited-for-... ... > The most recent audit of PG&E’s work in Sonoma County, conducted in 2015, found 3,527 maintenance and repair jobs that had been finished past their scheduled due dates. A 2013 audit of PG&E’s North Bay division, which includes Marin and Napa counties, counted 9,520 repair or maintenance orders finished late and 3,270 still overdue. > The commission ... counted more than 1,000 late repair or maintenance jobs in six of PG&E’s nine Bay Area districts. > No other California utility, or utility division, was found to have more than 1,000 late corrective actions in audits the commission performed from 2013 through this year. Only the Sacramento Municipal Utility District came close, with 993 late repair or maintenance jobs cited in an audit this year. > The 2015 audit of PG&E’s Sonoma operations, for example, included spot-check inspections of PG&E equipment in Cazadero, Guerneville, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sonoma and Windsor. Problems found include one instance of vegetation growing too close to a power line, one of vegetation obstructing the climbing space on a pole and several instances of improperly installed guy wires, which help hold a pole in place. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted-safety-money-for-profit-bonuses-2500175.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted-safety-... ... > Pacific Gas and Electric Co. diverted more than $100 million in gas safety and operations money collected from customers over a 15-year period and spent it for other purposes, including profit for stockholders and bonuses for executives, according to a pair of state-ordered reports released Thursday. > The documents link a deficient PG&E safety culture - with its "focus on financial performance" - to the pipeline explosion in San Bruno on Sept. 9, 2010, that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes. > The "low priority" the company gave to pipeline safety during the three years leading up to the San Bruno blast was "well outside industry practice - even during times of corporate austerity programs," said the audit by Overland Consulting of Leawood, Kan. > "A cursory review reveals that a significant portion, in the millions, has been awarded to the CEO," the commission staff report said in a reference to former PG&E head Peter Darbee, who retired last year. https://www.salon.com/2019/10/09/after-choosing-profits-over-maintenance-california-utility-giant-forces-blackouts-on-customers/ https://www.salon.com/2019/10/09/after-choosing-profits-over... .... > [PG&E] chose to diverting money from power line under-grounding projects — among other infrastructure initiatives — to “other high priority system improvements” like boosting corporate profits and paying executives even more. Despite their recent bankruptcy filing, the company's chief executive officer Bill Johnson received an annual base salary of $2.5 million for a three-year contract — double the salary of the previous CEO. > Thanks to a subsequent California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) investigation, the public learned that between 1987 and 1994 PG&E diverted $495 million from its budgets to maintain its systems to boost corporate profits. > Decades later, another an investigation by the California Public Utilities Commission found that PG&E diverted more than $100 million in gas safety and operations collected from customers over a 15-year period to spend on bonuses for executives, among other profit-makers for key stakeholders. --- Given the decades-long pattern that's documented here, we not only can hold PG&E 100% responsible, we should. Defending them for attempting to operate in WUI areas holds no water when they consistently chose to cash out funds that were supposed to be used for equipment maintenance. PG&E's practices are indefensible, they are wholly responsible for the deaths and property damage they have caused, their "just turn it all off" solution is absurd, and they should cease to exist if only to give future executives a reason to have a moment's introspection in between sips of top-shelf liquor.
- minimaxir 7y agoImportant note: San Francisco seems to be getting a pass for the blackout.
- daphneokeefe 7y agoSF is not at risk for grass fires and forest fires. It's a big city.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoWhile true, PG&E is going to cut power to a lot of urban parts of the Bay Area later today.
- anilshanbhag 7y agoBackground on why california has so many fires: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/climate/why-california-fires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/climate/why-california-fi... Answer: Santa Ana Winds + above ground power lines + fire suppression. From the article: It’s counterintuitive, but the United States’ history of suppressing wildfires has actually made present-day wildfires worse. “For the last century we fought fire, and we did pretty well at it across all of the Western United States,” Dr. Williams said. “And every time we fought a fire successfully, that means that a bunch of stuff that would have burned didn’t burn. And so over the last hundred years we’ve had an accumulation of plants in a lot of areas. “And so in a lot of California now when fires start, those fires are burning through places that have a lot more plants to burn than they would have if we had been allowing fires to burn for the last hundred years.” In recent years, the United States Forest Service has been trying to rectify the previous practice through the use of prescribed or “controlled” burns.
- hinkley 7y agoThe distinction that may be lost on many people is that plants that were very common in these areas were plants that could tolerate low to moderate intensity fire. In some cases the plants are so adapted to fire that they only reproduce after a fire. No fire, no new plants. Plants that aren't fire resistant get substantial selective pressure against them after every fire, while the fire 'loving' plants have reduced competition. But if you block the fires for a long time, you get not just more fuel building up, but more flammable plants building up. The whole process created hotter fires, that can damage or kill even the resistant plants. There is no phoenix to rise from those ashes. Prescribed burns are done, in theory, when the fuel+heat+oxygen equation is barely favorable enough to sustain a burn. This clears the fuel and maladapted plants and leaving the rest more or less intact. But a sudden wind or a nearly certain rainstorm that doesn't happen and you have a lot of explaining to do to the public.
- thaumaturgy 7y agoOne point here where I readily criticize the state is that they have a very, very narrow window during which prescribed burns are allowed to happen due to air quality management rules. Those need to be relaxed and fixed like yesterday; certainly the air quality impacts of out-of-control wildfires is far worse than the air quality impacts of prescribed burns. (https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article230481684.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article23048168...)
- johnny313 7y agoExplanation from PG&E: https://www.pgecurrents.com/2019/10/25/forecasts-indicate-potential-for-historic-wind-event-this-weekend-approximately-850000-customers-notified-that-they-may-be-impacted-beginning-saturday-evening/ https://www.pgecurrents.com/2019/10/25/forecasts-indicate-po...
- lsh123 7y agoPG&E: don't sue us or we will turn off power for you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- throw03172019 7y agoAnyone know how much money they save by shutting off power for a large majority of their customers?
- webkike 7y agoI don't think they save anything because they're not getting paid for electricity they do not provide.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoI would assume they aren’t billing for kW/hr when kilowatts aren’t being used. So, they seem to be turning off their income as well as some costs. Their expenses however still exist in the form of infrastructure, employees, etc. I find it more likely they themselves are under contract to create, buy, transfer, use, so many megawatts over so much time than the customer will have to pay for service that was turned off.
- cronix 7y ago> So, they seem to be turning off their income as well as some costs. Their expenses however still exist in the form of infrastructure, employees, etc. Yes, but they're weighing that loss of revenue against potentially having to pay out billions in damages if they cause another fire. It looks like the last fire is going to cost them over $18 billion, since that's what they're trying to cap it at last I saw. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-09/pge-looks-to-cap-wildfire-costs https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-09/pge-looks-...
- sxates 7y agoBeing in the business of selling power, I would think they're losing money when the power is off. They've got power plants idling and nobody racking up kwh's. I guess the calculus is that the lost revenue is less than the liability of a fire.
- newnewpdro 7y agoI imagine that depends on if they can sell the unused power somewhere else.
- nostrademons 7y agoTitle is hyperbole. If you look at the maps most of the major urban areas are excluded, notably all of SF and most of Silicon Valley: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=64ec74b4d46f43eab0cbd813fdc80f4f https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=64ec74b4d4... The announcement is for 850K customers, while if it were really for all of their CA territory it'd be tens of millions.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- huydotnet 7y agoThis comment should get more upvote. Thanks for the more accurate information. Also, the page pointed you to this one https://psps.ss.pge.com/ https://psps.ss.pge.com/ to check if your address is in the impact zone or not. Seems like it works this time.
- tomohawk 7y agoPG&E was forced to spend an extra $1.5B to $4.5B per year on green energy, which almost doubled the electric rates in CA. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/pges_bankruptcy_renewable_energy_costs_at_800_of_market_rates.html https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/pges_bankruptcy... Perhaps the money would have been better directed at upgrading transmission lines, etc.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoSide note: I found it interesting to see the discussion from people who have solar panels and learned that without a whole house battery the panels are practically useless when the power is out. I thought it was just worth noting as a time people think they have one thing, and discover it’s something else entirely.
- Filligree 7y agoThat's surprising to me. The need for capacitance is common sense to anyone with an understanding of electricity, which I would have assumed to include people who install solar panels on their homes. Has deployments gotten broad enough that not just (curious) early adopters install them, now?
- pas 7y agoIt most definitely has.
- tropo 7y agoI can run many things off of solar without batteries. Calculators are commonly sold this way. It makes perfect sense that this should work scaled up to a whole house. As long as the Sun is shining, there should be power.
- Filligree 7y agoCapacitance, not batteries; your calculator includes capacitors, and has low enough draw that they can power it for at least a second or two. That's the minimum requirement. Power draw varies on sub-second timescales; just because your power meter shows a continuous draw of 4 kW doesn't mean it's actually continuous, or that 4 (or 6, or 8) kW of solar panels would cover the spikes. When they don't, you get brownouts. You wouldn't want your house to shut off because of a passing cloud, either. Solar powered houses do not in fact need batteries -- a large capacitor bank would be plenty. It's just that a capacitor bank capable of running it for (say) five minutes, at a draw of several kilowatts, is enough power in a scary enough form factor to need armoring. Batteries are far safer, and also let you use power at night.
- btmorex 7y agoCan we just get public utilities back? At least if a public utility is run poorly, we can attempt to fix it via legislation. PG&E sucks, doesn't care, and probably the people responsible are still making bank.
- jeffdavis 7y agoWhat exactly should they do differently? How should you run a power company in a tinderbox?
- skookum 7y agoThis has been beaten to death in other threads related to this over the past several weeks, but the short answer to your question is "by putting money toward infrastructure upgrades instead of toward paying out dividends".
- trhway 7y ago$1B/year dividends plus stock buybacks - for example $200M/$400M/$800M/$800M in 2018/2017/2016/2015 https://ycharts.com/companies/PCG/stock_buyback https://ycharts.com/companies/PCG/stock_buyback
- testfoobar 7y agoYou are assuming that a publicly run utility would have the same cost structure as a private corporation - so the dividends that the private entity paid out would be available for further investment. If anything, I would expect a publicly run utility to be less efficient at capital allocation. All "excess" capital may get used up in the inefficiencies instead of investments. Consider the challenges of city-wide transportation networks in providing service, maintaining infrastructure and investing for the future.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y agoWhy do you expect a private monopoly to allocate capital more efficiently than a publicly run utility?
- cnst 7y agoAgain? BTW, I'd like to see how much they've spent retrofitting their website to handle the load of the customers trying to find out the details of the outage as it relates to their neighbourhood, and how soon after the start of the cutoffs that their website will go down again. Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21212135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21212135
- vermontdevil 7y agoWon't be surprised to see sales of batteries (PowerWall, etc) and solar to tick up due to this.
- leovander 7y agoWe recently had a power outage at the 10 story building we are in. No idea how long it was in the works, but a week later they installed a giant array of Tesla of Tesla Powerpacks.
- r00fus 7y agowas that an array[array[Tesla Powerpack]] or array[Tesla[Tesla[Powerpacks]]]
- mensetmanusman 7y ago10^4 Powerpacks!
- caseyf7 7y agoHow long will a PowerWall power a house? Is it hours or days?
- NotHereNotThere 7y agoHa! They are blocking users outside of the USA: Block ID: GEO02 Block reason: Access from your Country was disabled by the administrator.
- cagenut 7y agoMy understanding is that they have already filed for Chapter 11. Also the stock has fallen from 50 to 5. Meaning, the "old" PG&E is already dead. We can beat said dead horse over exec bonuses and tree trimming failures all we like, but its somewhat beside the point. How to go forward? Specifically, in Chapter 11 right now they're surely aggressively trying to re-negotiate every financial thing they can touch. Another fire opening up another lawsuit right now would almost instantly torpedo any deals in the works. Its a remarkably lose-lose situation.
- calimac 7y agoPG&E’s legal team is pulling these stunts to manipulate the jury pool and establish a defense of duress due to the public’s pressure on them to keep the power on. The solution is going to take cooperation from PG&E, the state, EPA, Municipalities and land owners. The state and epa need to make it easy for PG&E to maintain fire safety on public land. The counties need to make property owners bear the burden of paying to cut back trees if the planted them Under lines or cut it down at county expense, PG&E must reform. They have operated in a bloated Bureaucratic hybrid with malicious corporate vulture behavior
- jammygit 7y ago> Block reason: Access from your Country was disabled by the administrator. Canada is blocked?
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoCzech Republic, too.
- syntaxing 7y agoAfter moving to the west coast, I've learned that PG&E is suprisingly shitty (and absurdly expensive). I actually had a blackout for over three hours in SF. It actually forced me to do some blackout planning by buying some high efficiency portable solar panels just in case.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoIn my thirty-odd year experience, PG&E is more reliable in San Francisco than elsewhere in the Bay Area.
- campfireveteran 7y agoText at 10/25/2019 8:31 AM PG&E Safety Alert: Due to weather forecast, PG&E may turn off power in a portion of our service area. More info: pge.com/pspsupdates. Text UNENROLL to unsubscribe. Text at 10/25/2019 7:27 PM (identical) PG&E Safety Alert: Due to weather forecast, PG&E may turn off power in a portion of our service area. More info: pge.com/pspsupdates. Text UNENROLL to unsubscribe. There is a high wind advisory in effect from 10/25 8 PM to 10/26 10 PM. Most likely, they will shut off the power sometime between now (9 pm) and 3 am. It seems they do it while people are asleep to minimize numbers of angry customers calling in. PS: I have the generator out, fueled and cords laid down ready to continue runnig the refrigerator and Netflixing while Xfinity lasts the first 18-24 hours until they shutoff internet/phone (VOIP)/TV. We're lucky as we still have Dish that we are about to get rid of and rebundle with Xfinity.
- vanniv 7y agoWelcome to the third world country known as California, where we can't even get reliable electric service. Used to be the shining star of progress in the world, now this.
- jvagner 7y agoI’m moving back to SF on Nov 1 for work. It’s bemusing to watch the fire, electrical and BART outages this week. I’ve had CA related travel stays cancelled twice for PG&E outages. Looking for a place to stay/live, too.. if anyone here can help. Will be on Embarcadero, but I like the east bay, and beyond.
- vanniv 7y agoI'm sorry. I'm in So Cal, myself, but I'm really trying to escape. Have been starting to seriously investigate options outside of CA. It's just becoming so oppressively broken here.
- malyk 7y agoCheck out AC Transit Transbay Bus routes and live near one of those in Alameda/Oakland/Berkeley. Here in north oakland I have a 45 minute commute with a seat every day on the bus.
- jvagner 7y agoYes. Back in the day, I commuted to SOMA from Lafayette -- had that worked out quite nicely. I'll be starting from Oakland, found a spot to land that will give me a little time to work through market availabilities to find the right place. But what you suggest is more or less what I'm aiming for, with Lafayette/WC as a possible extension if I can keep the home-to-BART commute easy. I do like to get up at 430am and BART early, which opens things up a bit.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoI’m born and raised in California and have always lived here so I say this very much as a Californian, but that is such a California thing to say power outages make us like a third world country. (I’m laughing, not scolding.)