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I lived in California for 30 years and the only time I remember any serious issues with power was back in 2000-2001 during the famous electricity crisis. But fo

I lived in California for 30 years and the only time I remember any serious issues with power was back in 2000-2001 during the famous electricity crisis. But for some reason this idea endures that California has problems with their grid. Do they really? Because other than that one acute crisis I didn't have a problem with blackouts (that I can remember) for 20 freaking years. That's a pretty good record. It's a big state, so maybe the Bay Area has just fared better than other regions?

bumbledraven 4y ago
It's been getting worse lately. The average amount of time each residential PG&E customer was without power due to a sustained outage has increased from 1.9 hours/year in 2016 to 3.6 hours/year in 2021. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/planning-and-preparedness/safety-and-preparedness/grid-reliability/electric-reliability-reports/electric-reliability-reports.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/planning-and-p...
Alupis 4y ago
PG&E started voluntarily turning off power to entire towns to avoid fire hazards... fire hazards that were self-made and exist only because of other failures that have piled up for the past few decades. So the current situation is something along the lines of when the wind blows too much, they shut off the grid. When it blows too little, they shut off the grid. When it gets too hot, they shut off the grid. It's crazy that this is happening in California of all places, but decades of poor policy decisions led to this and it'll take quite a bit of time to undo.
bonestamp2 4y ago
I used to live half a mile from a power plant in another state and I had far more outages there than I've had in California. That said, there are constant incentives to reduce peak energy usage, and there were a couple weeks this year where they almost did rolling blackouts. So, they still struggle with meeting demand sometimes.
eddsh 4y ago
Stanford had a big power outage recently (this summer) that took out student accommodation, server rooms, etc... due to wild fires.

bumbledraven 4y ago

It's been getting worse lately. The average amount of time each residential PG&E customer was without power due to a sustained outage has increased from 1.9 hours/year in 2016 to 3.6 hours/year in 2021. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/planning-and-preparedness/safety-and-preparedness/grid-reliability/electric-reliability-reports/electric-reliability-reports.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/planning-and-p...

Alupis 4y ago

PG&E started voluntarily turning off power to entire towns to avoid fire hazards... fire hazards that were self-made and exist only because of other failures that have piled up for the past few decades. So the current situation is something along the lines of when the wind blows too much, they shut off the grid. When it blows too little, they shut off the grid. When it gets too hot, they shut off the grid. It's crazy that this is happening in California of all places, but decades of poor policy decisions led to this and it'll take quite a bit of time to undo.

bonestamp2 4y ago

I used to live half a mile from a power plant in another state and I had far more outages there than I've had in California. That said, there are constant incentives to reduce peak energy usage, and there were a couple weeks this year where they almost did rolling blackouts. So, they still struggle with meeting demand sometimes.

eddsh 4y ago

Stanford had a big power outage recently (this summer) that took out student accommodation, server rooms, etc... due to wild fires.