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Electrical power causes about 10% of wildfires by number [1], but it's responsible for 7 out of the 20 most devastating wildfires [2]. Perhaps this is because

Electrical power causes about 10% of wildfires by number [1], but it's responsible for 7 out of the 20 most devastating wildfires [2]. Perhaps this is because power-line fires happen disproportionally in remote, unattended areas, where they can grow large and uncontrollable before firefighters arrive. It probably won't solve wildfires - there's still plenty of fuel, and hotter climates, and strong winds - but it can buy some breathing room. I suspect a bigger reason is to maintain the integrity of the grid. Buried power lines don't start fires, but they also don't get taken down when there is a fire, and they won't have a judge order them shut-off when there's a risk of high fire danger. Being perceived as an unreliable source of electricity is a far bigger threat to a utility than burning down a few towns - I know that was the primary reason I went solar, and a lot of my peers are also thinking of disconnecting from the grid because the grid isn't there when you need it. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-California-s-biggest-wildfires-ignited-13907244.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-California-s... [2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/californias-catastrophic-wildfires-in-3-charts https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/californias-catastrophi...

devoutsalsa 5y ago
It’s like enforcing a policy of not smoking next to the pumps at a fueling station.
- SilasX 5y ago
  ... in a world where 4channers can anonymously spray sparks at gas stations and do it for the lulz, and it costs $1000 each time you tell someone to stop smoking at the pump. (That is, the policy is expensive, and there are numerous other hard-to-monitor causes of fires.)
eldaisfish 5y ago
If someone views a modern electrical utility in a Western country as unreliable then they either have no idea what they are talking about or have unreasonable expectations. See NERC's reliability report for 2020 - even accounting for fires, the average transmission capacity loss for the entire USA and Canada was mostly under 0.5%. (Page 65) https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/NERC_SOR_2020.pdf https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/... Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid transmission infrastructure and cannot match the amounts of energy a good transmission grid can deliver. The best part of the grid - you don't have to worry about balancing or when you need energy. You just flip a switch. Yes, PG&E could have done more and their investment choices led to lots of damage and loss but let's not jump the gun and term their grid unreliable. They are held to NERC's standards which are among the best in the world.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I think the poster was making the subtler point that while average performance will be good, that might be heavily weighted towards those living in urban centres. If some outlying customers switch to partial or full self sufficiency, then a utility "death spiral" can occur as they increase prices on the remaining customers in the area. Two responses to this are: Legally force people to stay connected and pay for the grid Start building microgrids using distributed solar and batteries, which is apparently being done in remote Australia. Either can be a good thing if well managed, or an inefficient boondoggle if not.
  - eldaisfish 5y ago
    right and i get that however, it's not a viable solution at all. A big reason why the current transmission network is so reliable is because of scale. You cannot recreate scale even if you band together with your neighbours to build a microgrid and you certainly cannot achieve scale on your own. Outlying customers are difficult to service in regular times because there are many failure points and few redundancies. The solution to this is not for every farm to install solar PV as a substitute to the grid but to shore up transmission and distribution infrastructure. Anyone who's lived in the high arctic will tell you that the #1 reason they are clamouring for connections to the continental grid is reliability. Solar, wind and even diesel generation are just not as reliable or sustainable.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Yeah, I think we generally agree. You see some people talking about solar and battery storage as if it makes (or is intended to make) each home self-sufficient, when the reality is that homes with solar and batteries that are also connected to the grid is the mainstream future. Solar installs on e.g. remote mining sites are already starting to conplement and then edge out diesel generators so there are off grid use cases but if you have a grid then the most efficient thing is to use it in most cases. But outlying customers in sunny areas are almost certainly going to benefit financially and in terms of reliability if the grid encourages them to install PV and batteries that talk to and work with the grid. Whether a grid owner will actually be incented to do so is a different question.
TheHypnotist 5y ago
What service do you have where your grid connection is that unreliable? Is it PG&E? Is it due to their "cautiousness"?
- mrep 5y ago
  Not op, but PG&E shut off the power to over 2 million people for 3ish days due to high wind fire risk back in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs...
  - coding123 5y ago
    In 2020 it was probably a grand total of 20 days, and restoration took days.
- nostrademons 5y ago
  Yes, it's PG&E. It's a combination of their cautiousness and their incompetence. Sometimes the power will just go out for reasons unrelated to PSPOs (public safety power outages).
- bob1029 5y ago
  > the grid isn't there when you need it. > What service do you have where your grid connection is that unreliable? I am in Ercot, right next to where the natural gas pipelines begin and where regulation ends, and I also struggle to keep the time on all of my appliances week-to-week. I don't know how the EI grid is doing, but feels like reliability has been dropping like a rock west of the Mississippi since ~2014 or so. I used to have a computer plugged directly into the ATX power grid that had ~3 years of uptime. What a fantastical time that was. Now, I am currently having a 50kW standby generator installed (oversized for multi-day operation). I am also investigating multiple fuel sources and smaller auxiliary units. Have to think in 2nd order terms these days. Everyone else is getting a generator installed too.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    In-laws installed a generator after a hurricane, maybe 15 years ago. Next hurricane with major power outages they were still sol- so many generators kicked on, combined with gas wells shut-in for the storm, meant the gas grid collapsed. They immediately had a propane backup tank installed that could run things for 2 weeks.
bluGill 5y ago
You have just convinced me that fires will get worse. Every time there is a fire it cleans out all the fuel, so if 10% suddenly go away, that means when the next fire happens there is more fuel for it.
- neaanopri 5y ago
  If there isn't any "critical infrastructure" which can be damaged nearby the fire, smaller intentional burns can keep fuel accumulation low.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Except no one wants to take the risk that the small fire becomes a huge one - or the smoke will aggravate someone’s asthma then next town over and get sued. Yes, that is a real reason I was quoted from a CalFire rep as to why they had to stop prescribed burns in a major fire risk area in the Sierra Foothills.
    - dogorman 5y ago
      > Except no one wants to take the risk that the small fire becomes a huge one Generally controlled burns are scheduled during wetter seasons for this reason. But the difficulty of getting the general public to understand this and go along with it is probably hard to understate.
      - lazide 5y ago
        It still happens that they get away from the firefighters sometimes [https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/escaped-prescribed-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/escaped-prescribed-fire/] With very high fuel loads, the consequences get worse as time progresses, and the odds of it happening get higher - at least without tons of manual shredding and other fuel work first, which is expensive, and what a prescribed fire should alleviate the need for. In the modern legal/liability environment, it’s tough to do - if you do the inexpensive thing (still expensive) like prescribed fires to reduce the catastrophic risk, you get sued. If you do the safer option (mastication, lop and scatter, etc) you can only touch tiny areas at a time - and the catastrophic risk rises. Logging can help, but it also requires management and care to not make the problem worse long term, and in many of these areas it’s a non-starter due to environmentalist pushback. Even if we ignore the cost in money, it delays things for decades sometimes - and by then it’s probably burned down.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

It’s like enforcing a policy of not smoking next to the pumps at a fueling station.

SilasX 5y ago
... in a world where 4channers can anonymously spray sparks at gas stations and do it for the lulz, and it costs $1000 each time you tell someone to stop smoking at the pump. (That is, the policy is expensive, and there are numerous other hard-to-monitor causes of fires.)

eldaisfish 5y ago

If someone views a modern electrical utility in a Western country as unreliable then they either have no idea what they are talking about or have unreasonable expectations. See NERC's reliability report for 2020 - even accounting for fires, the average transmission capacity loss for the entire USA and Canada was mostly under 0.5%. (Page 65) https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/NERC_SOR_2020.pdf https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/... Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid transmission infrastructure and cannot match the amounts of energy a good transmission grid can deliver. The best part of the grid - you don't have to worry about balancing or when you need energy. You just flip a switch. Yes, PG&E could have done more and their investment choices led to lots of damage and loss but let's not jump the gun and term their grid unreliable. They are held to NERC's standards which are among the best in the world.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I think the poster was making the subtler point that while average performance will be good, that might be heavily weighted towards those living in urban centres. If some outlying customers switch to partial or full self sufficiency, then a utility "death spiral" can occur as they increase prices on the remaining customers in the area. Two responses to this are: Legally force people to stay connected and pay for the grid Start building microgrids using distributed solar and batteries, which is apparently being done in remote Australia. Either can be a good thing if well managed, or an inefficient boondoggle if not.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  right and i get that however, it's not a viable solution at all. A big reason why the current transmission network is so reliable is because of scale. You cannot recreate scale even if you band together with your neighbours to build a microgrid and you certainly cannot achieve scale on your own. Outlying customers are difficult to service in regular times because there are many failure points and few redundancies. The solution to this is not for every farm to install solar PV as a substitute to the grid but to shore up transmission and distribution infrastructure. Anyone who's lived in the high arctic will tell you that the #1 reason they are clamouring for connections to the continental grid is reliability. Solar, wind and even diesel generation are just not as reliable or sustainable.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Yeah, I think we generally agree. You see some people talking about solar and battery storage as if it makes (or is intended to make) each home self-sufficient, when the reality is that homes with solar and batteries that are also connected to the grid is the mainstream future. Solar installs on e.g. remote mining sites are already starting to conplement and then edge out diesel generators so there are off grid use cases but if you have a grid then the most efficient thing is to use it in most cases. But outlying customers in sunny areas are almost certainly going to benefit financially and in terms of reliability if the grid encourages them to install PV and batteries that talk to and work with the grid. Whether a grid owner will actually be incented to do so is a different question.

TheHypnotist 5y ago

What service do you have where your grid connection is that unreliable? Is it PG&E? Is it due to their "cautiousness"?

mrep 5y ago
Not op, but PG&E shut off the power to over 2 million people for 3ish days due to high wind fire risk back in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs...
- coding123 5y ago
  In 2020 it was probably a grand total of 20 days, and restoration took days.
nostrademons 5y ago
Yes, it's PG&E. It's a combination of their cautiousness and their incompetence. Sometimes the power will just go out for reasons unrelated to PSPOs (public safety power outages).
bob1029 5y ago
> the grid isn't there when you need it. > What service do you have where your grid connection is that unreliable? I am in Ercot, right next to where the natural gas pipelines begin and where regulation ends, and I also struggle to keep the time on all of my appliances week-to-week. I don't know how the EI grid is doing, but feels like reliability has been dropping like a rock west of the Mississippi since ~2014 or so. I used to have a computer plugged directly into the ATX power grid that had ~3 years of uptime. What a fantastical time that was. Now, I am currently having a 50kW standby generator installed (oversized for multi-day operation). I am also investigating multiple fuel sources and smaller auxiliary units. Have to think in 2nd order terms these days. Everyone else is getting a generator installed too.
- beerandt 5y ago
  In-laws installed a generator after a hurricane, maybe 15 years ago. Next hurricane with major power outages they were still sol- so many generators kicked on, combined with gas wells shut-in for the storm, meant the gas grid collapsed. They immediately had a propane backup tank installed that could run things for 2 weeks.

bluGill 5y ago

You have just convinced me that fires will get worse. Every time there is a fire it cleans out all the fuel, so if 10% suddenly go away, that means when the next fire happens there is more fuel for it.

neaanopri 5y ago
If there isn't any "critical infrastructure" which can be damaged nearby the fire, smaller intentional burns can keep fuel accumulation low.
- lazide 5y ago
  Except no one wants to take the risk that the small fire becomes a huge one - or the smoke will aggravate someone’s asthma then next town over and get sued. Yes, that is a real reason I was quoted from a CalFire rep as to why they had to stop prescribed burns in a major fire risk area in the Sierra Foothills.
  - dogorman 5y ago
    > Except no one wants to take the risk that the small fire becomes a huge one Generally controlled burns are scheduled during wetter seasons for this reason. But the difficulty of getting the general public to understand this and go along with it is probably hard to understate.
    - lazide 5y ago
      It still happens that they get away from the firefighters sometimes [https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/escaped-prescribed-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/escaped-prescribed-fire/] With very high fuel loads, the consequences get worse as time progresses, and the odds of it happening get higher - at least without tons of manual shredding and other fuel work first, which is expensive, and what a prescribed fire should alleviate the need for. In the modern legal/liability environment, it’s tough to do - if you do the inexpensive thing (still expensive) like prescribed fires to reduce the catastrophic risk, you get sued. If you do the safer option (mastication, lop and scatter, etc) you can only touch tiny areas at a time - and the catastrophic risk rises. Logging can help, but it also requires management and care to not make the problem worse long term, and in many of these areas it’s a non-starter due to environmentalist pushback. Even if we ignore the cost in money, it delays things for decades sometimes - and by then it’s probably burned down.