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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 e

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.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    It's not about pure reliability numbers, but rather control. If my only source of electricity is the grid, then when the grid goes down, there is literally nothing I can do about it but wait and hope while all the things I use grid electricity for slowly fall apart. Whereas if I have some local generation, I can retain some functionality regardless of what the grid operators do. Solar has the further advantage that it doesn't require ongoing fuel, so you're not dependent on that infrastructure either. Sizing a battery system to accommodate your usual lifestyle while it's dark is a bit silly, but a modest amount of storage that can supply say an average of 200W will get you quite far (fridge, sump pump, lighting, internet uplink, laptop).
epistasis 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. This is making the error of substituting average performance for the actual performance of a particular grid. The PG&E grid shuts down large amounts of transmission during high wind events: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutof... > Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid transmission infrastructure This is proving to be very wrong. Transmission is extremely expensive, it can be one of the most expensive parts of the grid, and, both batteries and distributed solar are being used as a substitute for transmission. The term in the industry is "non-wires alternatives," and it was a way for early lithium ion batteries to be used profitably on the grid, even before their recent price drops. (That and frequency regulation in the PJM market).
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  For posterity - NERC's report addresses fires specifically and even breaks out individual fires. Yes, people losing power in California happened for extended periods but many more people did not lose power and PG&E was not the only utility implicated there. Besides, natural disasters happen yearly and if you read NERC's report, you'll see that there are far more outages due to storms than wildfires. My only gripe here is that this by itself, does not quality PG&E's grid as "unreliable". As for non-wires alternatives, I can point to several reports, some from NERC, some NREL and others private companies that have found - over and over again - that the path towards more grid reliability involves better transmission and stronger distribution. Batteries and solar can delay the investment needed, not substitute them altogether.
spfzero 5y ago
There are some unintended consequences of shutting off the power preventively though. Two seasons ago someone had switched on the three generators they had installed because of these "high-winds" shutoffs, one of which caught fire and ended up causing a medium-sized brushfire here, I think on the order of a few thousand acres IIRC. It was in one of the canyons around here, fairly rural, but very near lots of suburbia.

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.
- mindslight 5y ago
  It's not about pure reliability numbers, but rather control. If my only source of electricity is the grid, then when the grid goes down, there is literally nothing I can do about it but wait and hope while all the things I use grid electricity for slowly fall apart. Whereas if I have some local generation, I can retain some functionality regardless of what the grid operators do. Solar has the further advantage that it doesn't require ongoing fuel, so you're not dependent on that infrastructure either. Sizing a battery system to accommodate your usual lifestyle while it's dark is a bit silly, but a modest amount of storage that can supply say an average of 200W will get you quite far (fridge, sump pump, lighting, internet uplink, laptop).

epistasis 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. This is making the error of substituting average performance for the actual performance of a particular grid. The PG&E grid shuts down large amounts of transmission during high wind events: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutoffs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shutof... > Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid transmission infrastructure This is proving to be very wrong. Transmission is extremely expensive, it can be one of the most expensive parts of the grid, and, both batteries and distributed solar are being used as a substitute for transmission. The term in the industry is "non-wires alternatives," and it was a way for early lithium ion batteries to be used profitably on the grid, even before their recent price drops. (That and frequency regulation in the PJM market).

eldaisfish 5y ago
For posterity - NERC's report addresses fires specifically and even breaks out individual fires. Yes, people losing power in California happened for extended periods but many more people did not lose power and PG&E was not the only utility implicated there. Besides, natural disasters happen yearly and if you read NERC's report, you'll see that there are far more outages due to storms than wildfires. My only gripe here is that this by itself, does not quality PG&E's grid as "unreliable". As for non-wires alternatives, I can point to several reports, some from NERC, some NREL and others private companies that have found - over and over again - that the path towards more grid reliability involves better transmission and stronger distribution. Batteries and solar can delay the investment needed, not substitute them altogether.

spfzero 5y ago

There are some unintended consequences of shutting off the power preventively though. Two seasons ago someone had switched on the three generators they had installed because of these "high-winds" shutoffs, one of which caught fire and ended up causing a medium-sized brushfire here, I think on the order of a few thousand acres IIRC. It was in one of the canyons around here, fairly rural, but very near lots of suburbia.