
Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped - jqcoffey
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/business/california-blackouts.html
======
nimbius
as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected.
Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have
capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure.

Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and
load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer
from underreporting as they often dont have remote monitoring capability
beyond whats detected at the line. Operators tend to baby these stations
intentionally as their failure could spark massive outages across the grid
(again, due to older design considerations)

Now this part might get a little political, but these substations/transfer
depots/etc... arent just old because the outage would hit a lot of customers
at once, but because NIMBY groups frequently oppose building or augmenting
existing substations. Wild claims related to electromagnetism basically kill
the project at every level.

its also worth noting that the nytimes might not be taking into account the
number of people working from home. Duty and loadcycles for this year are
going to be very hard to predict.

~~~
meroes
I am a technician for xfinity in the bay area and NIMBYism a huge part too I
would say. Huge portions of Mill Valley especially on and around Mt Tam had
such bad poles and vegetation. Only the last 3 fire years did anything. But
literally nothing gets approved besides exact replacement. Nothing gets put
underground, or rerouted because (as I understand it) mostly NIMBY groups. And
I believe ATT ultimately owns most of the poles, PGE maintains them + leases,
and the rest (comcast, sonic, etc) just lease. Marin has the reputation in
Xfinity as the worst maintained in the 9 bay area locales they work in.

~~~
paloaltokid
Oh god...Marin NIMBYism is really crazy when it comes to that stuff. And
there's a lot of conspiracy theory / 5G type stuff that goes on as well.
Strange to think that many of the folks who live there are in charge of a lot
of the companies on HN (or are senior execs there).

~~~
davisr
Well, they're not entirely wrong about the 5G. I understand many in this forum
won't agree with me. From
[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-
no...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no-reason-to-
believe-5g-is-safe/)

    
    
      > We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe
    
      > The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified RFR as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 2011. Last year, a $30 million study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) found “clear evidence” that two years of exposure to cell phone RFR increased cancer in male rats and damaged DNA in rats and mice of both sexes. The Ramazzini Institute in Italy replicated the key finding of the NTP using a different carrier frequency and much weaker exposure to cell phone radiation over the life of the rats.
    
      > Since 5G is a new technology, there is no research on health effects, so we are “flying blind” to quote a U.S. senator. However, we have considerable evidence about the harmful effects of 2G and 3G. Little is known the effects of exposure to 4G, a 10-year-old technology, because governments have been remiss in funding this research. Meanwhile, we are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation. These increases are consistent with results from case-control studies of tumor risk in heavy cell phone users.
    

About the author:

    
    
      > Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD, is director of the Center for Family and Community Health in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been translating and disseminating the research on wireless radiation health effects since 2009 after he and his colleagues published a review paper that found long-term cell phone users were at greater risk of brain tumors. His Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website has had more than two million page views since 2013. He is an unpaid advisor to the International EMF Scientist Appeal and Physicians for Safe Technology.

~~~
aaronAgain
_" so we are “flying blind” to quote a U.S. senator. "_

Quoting a US senator on technology is not exactly a strong argument. Like
arguing about email security and quoting a senator on the technology committee
saying he has never sent an email.

[https://www.engadget.com/2015-03-09-lindsey-graham-never-
sen...](https://www.engadget.com/2015-03-09-lindsey-graham-never-sent-
email.html)

In many cases senators are the least possible informed people on a topic, and
are almost certainly not focused on the pure science of an issue. Quoting one
of them pretty much means you are trying to sway me by using their position,
not research.

Also, nothing that you quoted about 5G actually says it is unsafe. Saying that
2G and 3G are unsafe and that we don't know what 4G does, and that government
doesn't want to investigate 5G, and that tumors of a certain type 'may be at
least partially attributable' to cell phone radiation, and all of the other
slights, all of that doesn't add up to 5G is unsafe.

This is the direct rebut to the article you linked, even from the same site.

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/dont-
fall-...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/dont-fall-prey-to-
scaremongering-about-5g/)

    
    
      > On the strength of epidemiological evidence, cancer fears are dangerously misguided: While American cell-phone usage has grown from virtually zero in 1992 to virtually 100 percent by 2008, there has been no indication that glioma rates have increased proportionally in the same period—a nonrelationship replicated by numerous other studies. 
    
    

_About the author_

    
    
      > David Robert Grimes is a cancer researcher, physicist, and John Maddox Prize–winning science writer. He is based at Dublin City University and is a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. He advises, across Europe, on the public understanding of science, particularly on vaccination policy and combatting cancer misinformation. His first book, The Irrational Ape: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk, and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World, is now available from Simon & Schuster UK.

~~~
Mister_X
Hmm, I was selling and installing a lot of Cell Phones in Silicon Valley in
1983 (C-Tell Cellular, Santa Clara), and we had an office in Sacramento that
was doing even better than I was sales wise.

To characterize the nearly ten years of cell phone growth as "virtually zero"
makes me seriously question the authors fact checking and thought process.

To whit: "While American cell-phone usage has grown from virtually zero in
1992 to virtually 100 percent by 2008"

~~~
uep
That's anecdotal evidence. My anecdotal evidence is that I lived in a suburb
of a major city on the east coast, and no one I knew had a cellphone until
probably the mid-90s.

------
lisper
Every year you hear about horrible heat waves and fires in California but I'm
here to tell you from my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different.
I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years. We bought a brand new spec house.
It was built without air conditioning. The developer said we wouldn't need it.
We installed it anyway because we came from LA and a house in California
without A/C did not fit into our worldview.

For the first few years, we rarely used the A/C. Then one year we had a
Horrible Heat Wave that lasted two or three days. The A/C ran more or less
continuously during that time, but managed to mostly keep up. And it always
cooled off at night.

In subsequent years we had period recurrences of 2-3 day heat events that
caused our A/C to run quite a lot but still keep up. This latest heat event
has seen the A/C running three days now with no relief forecast until
Thursday. Worse, it's not cooling off much at night the way it always used to.
For the first time in ten years we are having to run the A/C at night instead
of opening windows in order to sleep.

Frankly, the trend scares the living shit out of me. The speed at which these
changes are manifesting themselves in our little microclimate is just mind-
boggling.

~~~
rconti
My anecdote is the opposite. I lived in Santa Clara from 2002-2010, San Carlos
2010-2011, Belmont 2011-2014, Redwood City 2014-present.

Never had AC on the Peninsula. We have heatwaves every year. This summer has
been remarkably mild, low 70s most of July and August until now. We got our
heatwave. A bit more humid than normal thanks to tropical storm remnants, 70f
dewpoint and 95f on Sunday, 65f dewpoint and spiked to 105f Saturday briefly.

It seems fractionally warmer than most heatwaves, and slightly longer, but
doesn't 'feel' indicative of a trend.

Still no A/C, and I guess I notice it more now that I'm home 24/7, but still
totally do-able.

Been running the house fan overnight to get the rooms down into the mid-high
70s.

~~~
kelnos
That's contrary to my experience. I lived in south bay and the peninsula
2004-2010 and needed a/c every summer, for multiple weeks each year. For two
of those years I didn't have a/c and had a lot of sleep loss those summers
when daytime temperatures would break 90F, and occasionally 100F. Even when
we'd "only" get mid-80F temperatures, I'd still want to run the a/c during the
day if I was home. Feeling sticky while sitting on one's couch is no fun.

I've lived in SF since 2010, and there have been multiple weeks in the summer,
during the past 5 or 6 years, where I've been unable to sleep due to heat.
That sort of thing was rare in the 4 or 5 years prior. Just over this past
weekend my inside temperature topped at just below 90F, with the outdoor
daytime temperature getting as high as 98F. By the time I went to sleep, the
indoor temperature was still in the low 80s, with windows open and fans on
full.

If you don't require a/c at those temperatures in order to sleep well, lucky
you, but then I wouldn't characterize you as typical.

~~~
rconti
Sorry, I had A/C when I lived in Santa Clara, that was poorly worded. I
remember well the heat wave of 2006 where it peaked at 107 for 3 days in a row
(and of course was over 100 for longer than that).

------
makomk
Having looked at the graphs on the CAISO website, I think they had a supply
problem and the New York Times is being a little disingenuous here. You can
bring up the renewables graph for the 14th here (change the date):
[http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx](http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx)
At 6 PM, they had about 5.2 GW of solar still coming in. That rapidly and
predictably dropped to zero over the next hour and a half. If my rough maths
is correct that alone would be enough to wipe out almost the entire 12 percent
operating reserve. There's also a really interesting graph of demand vs net
demand minus solar and wind on the other page; you can see that total demand
flattens out near the top, but net demand - which is what the grid operator
has to find generating capacity to fill - continues to ramp up aggressively
right up until the peak.

------
rconti
Mr Powers is pushing an interesting conspiracy theory in this article, which I
haven't seen discussed yet. I haven't seen anyone else backing it up in other
sources, but of course it's still early in the reporting on this issue.

>In particular, California ISO said two natural gas power plants shut down on
Friday and, on Saturday, a wind farm and another gas plant stopped producing
power.

The state is currently reviewing proposals to extend the operation of old
natural gas plants in Southern California. Environmentalists want the plants
to remain closed because they use fossil fuels and are cooled using seawater,
endangering marine life.

“It makes for a compelling story” if you have blackouts because of a lack of
power plants, Mr. Powers said. “We know there is no capacity problem,” he
said. “Something odd happened.”

~~~
segfaultbuserr
To be fair, we've seen a conspiracy of deliberately pulling perfectly working
power plants off the grid in the past, so it's not outside the realm of
possibility. In the 2000s, Enron did it to financially manipulate the energy
market, and it was directly responsible for California's last crisis [0]. It's
probably where the idea of such a conspiracy is coming from.

> _These blackouts occurred as a result of a poorly designed market system
> that was manipulated by traders and marketers, as well as from poor state
> management and regulatory oversight. Subsequently, Enron traders were
> revealed as intentionally encouraging the removal of power from the market
> during California 's energy crisis by encouraging suppliers to shut down
> plants to perform unnecessary maintenance, as documented in recordings made
> at the time._

Of course, I'm not saying that the current blackout _is_ a conspiracy,
claiming it to be a fossil-fuel conspiracy takes the paranoia to another
level, especially when there's no evidence to back it up (yet). I mentioned it
just as a historical curiosity.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#California's_deregulatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#California's_deregulation_and_subsequent_energy_crisis)

\---

> _“They set it up like this is a historic event,” said Bill Powers, a San
> Diego engineer who provides expert testimony on utility matters before the
> state’s regulators. “This should not have triggered blackouts.”_

I just searched "Bill Powers", it seems that it's not a pseudonym given by the
_New York Times_ , it's real, sounds like a good name to work in the energy
industry, haha...

Seriously speaking, apparently this man, Bill Powers, is an activist in
consumer protection and energy issues, who often tries to challenge multiple
investigations on energy issues before the state’s regulators. I don't think
it's wrong, we need people to show up during official investigations to make
them more accountable, but it does reduce his credibility if there's no
additional evidence to support his latest claim, e.g.

* Energy Experts Question Scale of Blackout (2011)

[https://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/sep/09/energy-experts-
questio...](https://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/sep/09/energy-experts-question-
scale-blackout/)

> _Energy experts are baffled at the scale of yesterday’s blackout which left
> five million people without power._

> _The blackout here was caused by a transmission failure in Arizona. But
> power-industry analyst Bill Powers says the grid is set up so that if
> there’s a sudden loss of supply, energy companies must immediately lower
> demand through a strategy of controlled blackouts. Powers said a San Diego
> Gas & Electric executive’s repeated assertion that the blackout was caused
> by human error in Arizona yesterday falls short._

> _“That doesn’t explain why SDG &E didn’t deploy its emergency procedure
> which is to selectively brownout and blackout portions of San Diego," Powers
> said. "It looks like something didn’t go right at SDG&E.”_

* Is the Porter Ranch blackout warning overblown? Yes, says one expert (2016)

[https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2016/04/06/47787/energ...](https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2016/04/06/47787/energy-
expert-argues-porter-ranch-blackout-warning/)

> _But Bill Powers, a frequent expert witness before the California Public
> Utilities Commission, isn 't convinced by officials' claims, calling the
> blackout warning alarmist. He said that in at least the last decade, SoCal
> Gas has never hit its firm capacity during the summer peak in the L.A.
> basin._

* State Senate To Hold Hearings On Phony Blackout Blackmail Report (2016)

[https://consumerwatchdog.org/blog/state-senate-hold-
hearings...](https://consumerwatchdog.org/blog/state-senate-hold-hearings-
phony-blackout-blackmail-report)

> _A report by engineer Bill Powers for Food and Water Watch found key
> mispresentations, omissions, and misstatements about demand and capacity.
> Will engineer Bill Powers will be able to present his opposition report and
> provide technical insight to the committee on a very technical issue? Both
> sides should be heard if the hearing is meant to shed light and not simply
> give energy regulators and So Cal Gas cover._

* What will the next heavy winds bring? Assessing the great power shut-off of 2019 (2019)

[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-15/pge-
powe...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-15/pge-power-
shutoff-aftermath-outlook)

> _“The utilities will oppose accelerating the deployment of behind-the-meter
> solar and batteries, even in areas that are subject to the shut-offs,
> because it’s just so diametrically opposed to their business model,” said
> Bill Powers, a San Diego electrical engineering consultant and consumer
> advocate._

~~~
booleanbetrayal
I don't think most people realize the nexus of interests that conspired to
facilitate those rolling blackouts, while ultimately turning Ken Lay into the
Kingmaker of Cali.

------
cheezerman
What's going to happen when they close Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant? [1]
It currently provides 9% of the state's power (2256MW).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant)

~~~
aaomidi
Percentage isn't the issue. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant provides the
base power usage, which isn't the issue that's causing the blackouts.

Looking at raw percentage numbers for blackouts is wrong because this is an
issue of not having enough capacity during peak, which nuclear doesn't solve.

~~~
newguy1234
The issue that is causing the problems is peak demand hits around 5:30
pm....exactly at the same time when solar supply is dropping rapidly. We need
natural gas peaker plants that basically fire up to bridge the gap during the
night.

Every now and then we might get bailed out if wind is strong that day but
that's not something you can build a reliable grid on.

~~~
bob1029
Ercot had this problem last year WRT to over-reliance on wind generation
capacity. At one dire point we had 90 minutes of $9/KWh rates and the utility
was looking to roll blackouts. I paid $200 for 1 day of electricity and I
pulled my breaker about halfway through the worst part. I know people who got
hit with nearly 4 figures for a single day of usage.

I don't have problems with renewable energy in principle, but until we have
practical storage capabilities or other alternatives, it seems like we need to
keep most of the less desirable forms of generation capacity around. I do not
think it is acceptable to roll blackouts until we have something like a tesla
powerwall in every electricity consumers' premises. We should never compromise
on grid quality in pursuit of environmental objectives. The 2nd order
consequences of an unreliable grid could have even more grave environmental
impact than driving the grid with a coal plant (i.e. every business &
homeowner on earth starts buying carbon-intensive generators or lithium
batteries due to grid stability problems).

Decommissioning nuclear capacity seems like a massive mistake in general, but
I understand the geology is potentially subpar in this specific case. Is it
technologically infeasible to produce earthquake-proof nuclear power plants?
Or, at least plants that would be guaranteed fail-safe under any seismic
condition?

~~~
fragmede
It is politically infeasible to do anything with Nuclear power but the
technology potentially exists (eg thorium reactors). In this era where
punditry is as good as expertise, however, nuclear power plants that failed
safe would be looked as the "unsinkable" Titanic was, in hindsight. On top of
that, the Fukushima nuclear disaster set the nuclear industry back decades.

------
c3534l
I remember hearing about rolling blackouts in California as this mysterious
problem that occurred after privatization, then after Enron broke, it was
revealed that they'd been engineering blackouts in pump & dump schemes. Any
chance there's a relationship between these blackouts and the older ones? Or
are we sure this is some completely new phenomenon?

~~~
rconti
According to the news, this is the first rolling blackout since 2001, which,
yeah, was bogus.

------
Animats
Too much solar to handle evening A/C load?

Rarely does northern California have heavy A/C loads in the evening. Solar
power output and heat load usually match well. But not this week. Usually,
peak loads are around 2 PM, at air conditioning peak. This power restriction
is for 3 PM to 10 PM, which presumably comes from evening A/C loads while
buildings cool down.

Wind is all over the place, up and down by a factor of 4, unrelated to time of
day.

~~~
jeffbee
The peak systemic load occurs at about 3pm but the peak grid load doesn't
happen until 6pm. The shift is caused by dispersed rooftop solar.

------
mcbishop
Here's a more nuanced (i.e. geekier) article on what caused these rolling
blackouts, from a quality new-energy publication:
[https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-
californias...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-californias-
shift-from-natural-gas-to-solar-is-playing-a-role-in-rolling-blackouts)

------
whiddershins
I wonder how much it matters that home ac is almost universally less
efficient, by a huge margin, than office ac.

------
WalterBright
One way to deal with this is to have variable electric rates - cheaper rates
when plenty of power is available, and more expensive when less. This
incentivizes consumers to time shift their usage.

For example, evening A/C use can be time shifted to the day, by cooling the
house more during the day, so less is needed in the evening. The thermal mass
of a house has a lot of inertia (and can be increased by adding, say, a pile
of rocks).

The idea of a fixed 24/7 electricity rate is hopelessly obsolete.

~~~
icedistilled
SCE is trying to shift people to time of use rates.

The problem is the time of use rates are terrible, and will be more expensive
to anyone who normally stays within tier one rates of the old plan.

I'd end up paying about 30% more for power under any of their time of use rate
plans even assuming I only use power in off peak times, despite owning a plug
in hybrid. If you stay within their tier one rates on the old plan, the new
time-of-use-plans just aren't priced acceptably.

~~~
rconti
As someone without A/C, switching to TOU saved quite a bit of money
(relatively speaking; my bills were not very large to begin with).

~~~
icedistilled
Interesting. I also don't have AC nor do I ever exceed tier 1 pricing. I
thought time of use would be much more beneficial for someone who gets into
tier 2 pricing if they can shift their use away from peak hours, making all
their power at the cheapest rate. Right now my tier 1 cost is $0.21/kwh, the
TOU plans are $0.25/kwh off peak, $0.5/kwh peak, but there is a $0.08/kwh
credit for within tier 1 usage. Mathed out it's still more expensive.

~~~
rconti
ouch!

And, of course, even if TOU was cheaper when I switched, that doesn't mean it
doesn't become unfavorable next time rates change.

We're grandfathered into a plan that gives us peak hours of 1-7pm where the
new plans are 4-9pm peak. This works great for us with solar, because we make
huge generation credits in that 1-4pm range when nobody's home to use power.
(or, nobody WAS home before COVID). And we start our evening energy usage
after 7pm as we return home from work + outdoor 'after work' activities. The
9pm end for peak hours would definitely hurt us.

OTOH, we have an EV now, so even charging off-peak at, say, 18c is relatively
expensive vs the really cheap EV plans that give you good overnight rates.
We've got an 11.5kW charger so I'd really love a stupid-cheap rate between,
say, 2-4am. But if we switch to an EV plan, the costs go up the rest of the
day.

Another perverse thing I've found; your net metering credits under NEM2.0 are
on a per-month basis. This is AWESOME in the summer when we generate solar
credit at more than 2x the 'value' as we burn them charging the car at off-
peak.. but in the winter, when we don't generate much, we get into tier 2
pretty damn quickly.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/wiAZQ](https://archive.is/wiAZQ)

------
rossdavidh
So, not saying this is the main driver here, but just wondering: with a lot of
people working from home, rather than an office building, it becomes relevant
which is more efficient to cool. I have to think that it is more efficient to
cool a single, larger building than many smaller ones? Again, not saying it's
the primary reason, just mentioning that it could be a contributing factor.

~~~
mdorazio
That's a good point, and it's probably worth digging into. It's actually going
to depend on a few factors, though. Off the top of my head: are office
buildings running HVAC systems at significantly higher temps than they would
otherwise have been? How many people working from home actually have A/C? How
much more efficient are large A/C systems in comparison to home units?

I have a feeling that offices that are "empty" are still running their A/C
systems and lighting at some level, and then you have some portion of WFH
people also running those things at home, so overall demand is higher than it
was when most office workers were actually in the office.

~~~
rossdavidh
I think also that, although the lighting may often be on in empty offices, the
computers (and body heat) are lower, or missing entirely, so the offices
aren't having to work very hard. However, all that load has shifted back to
WFH, not gone away, so now the same amount of heat is being handled by less
efficient A/Cs, in smaller buildings.

All speculative, though, and probably not the main driver, I admit.

------
jeffbee
Would love to know what changes day-to-day. According to CAISO dashboard, they
are currently delivering 45 GW, while yesterday they were shedding load before
they hit 44 GW. So, what aspect of supply changed? We're importing the same
amount but we're getting 5 GW more natural gas supply than yesterday. Are
there ... are there nat. gas plants that only operate on weekdays?

~~~
khuey
The issue is time of day. Everything is fine while the sun is still up. Once
the sun starts setting and the ~10GW of solar power California has goes away
things get challenging.

~~~
jeffbee
Yes but the sun is up right now and they are already shedding loads (the
dashboard is bouncing off a ceiling of 45 GW).

~~~
khuey
That is likely natural fluctuations in demand. The grid operator has not
announced any load shedding (they have not even announced any imminent need to
shed load) and there's still another 5GW of available capacity according to
the dashboard.

~~~
jeffbee
It doesn't seem very likely that the actual behavior of a large-scale
stochastic system and the hour-ahead forecast of that system would part ways
to the extent we're seeing, just by coincidence. If it wasn't an intentional
curtailment of demand, perhaps there is simply an outage somewhere?

~~~
khuey
Maybe there was unintentional curtailment of some sort, idk. There's still no
announcement of stage 3 emergency (intentional curtailment).

~~~
jeffbee
I am going to try to use "unintentional curtailment" in a future post-mortem
report.

------
fredliu
I start to see tweets attributing the CA power outages to increased degree of
renewable energies that are "inherently unreliable"(solar, wind), on the
supply side of the equation. And of course the tweets are very politically
charged, making it hard to judge how true those claims are. Anybody has more
insights on these claims?

~~~
icedistilled
I read a Forbes article that made a ton of claims like that.

The article was a bunch of statements along the lines of "the renewable push
is the reason PGE has neglected maintenance!", without even attempting to
explain the connections for any of their claims.

Another claim was that Jerry Brown shut San Onofre Nuclear power station,
SONGS, and they wrote that if Brown hadn't shut it then we would have avoided
the latest brown outs.

No explanation as to how they believe he'd managed to sabotage Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries causing the problems at SONGS that led to billions of dollars
and many years of NRC licensing hurdles and required repairs had they decided
to do keep it up and running. And not only that, Jerry brown apparently also
caused natural gas to be super price efficient, making it impossible for SCE
to justify repairing and returning SONGS to full power. Nope, not a peep about
those things or how they felt Jerry Brown caused them.

Of course the agenda pusher writing for Forbes didn't explain how Jerry Brown
did any of those things, they could just state that Jerry Brown closed it and
most people would have to take it at face value. Why care about facts when you
can push an agenda!

------
plorg
The best I can make sense of this article, there may have been, overall,
enough generating capacity on the grid, but not enough transmission capacity
in particular locations. The closest anything in this article is the bizarre
state statement that "no one says it was congestion". But spiking LMP's pretty
much exactly indicate either congestion or insufficient generation in
particular areas. In fact, in the case that, overall, there is sufficient
generation, these conditions are the same. What it might mean is that there is
some network condition, e.g. some generation or transmission out on scheduled
maintenance, that puts the grid in a less-than secure state, such that higher
than expected demand causes transmission in unexpected areas of the network.

------
briandear
Why does Texas not have these power problems? They have their own separate
power grid and in my lifetime I can’t remember ever having rolling blackouts
due to demand spikes.

It seems like California suffers from policy problems rather than
technological ones.

Why doesn’t California embrace nuclear power? Traditionally most of France’s
power has been nuclear and it has worked fine for decades. Interestingly the
initiatives to switch to renewable energy specific excluded nuclear and hydro.
Politics seem to get in the way of good policy. Rather than pleading to
conserve power, why not generate more of it? When people are starving, the
solution isn’t to tell everyone to eat less, but to produce more.

------
dragonwriter
The headline says it leaves experts stumped, the body of the article makes it
clear that it was largely because three natural gas plants were shutdown in
what seems to be an effort to build political support for extending the
operating life of older natural gas plants.

------
robomartin
I think I can say that our entire neighborhood is up in arms about what's
going on with SCE in general. In the last few months people have received
bills that amount to 10 to 20 times their usual bill.

In our case, with a 13 kW solar array, our usual bill is in the order of $15
per month and has been so for years. Last month our bill was $350 and the
prior month $184. We have been sending excess energy to SCE for years. I built
a larger system than normal in preparation for electric vehicles. Which means
that, at times, we send as much as 6 kW or so back. None of that mattered.

What complicates everything is that we were auto-magically signed-up for CPA
(Clean Power Alliance). Which is, as far as I am concerned, a government run
scam (sorry if this offends anyone). By "we" I mean, most of our neighborhood
and town.

What makes this a mess is that SCE can't talk about CPA rates and CPA can't
talk about SCE billing. One, in theory, provides the electricity and the other
charges you for the transport and some fees. If you have ever tried to make
sense out of one of these bills you know exactly what I am talking about. I
have spent hours on the phone will SCE billing people and they can't tell me
how some of it is actually calculated, even managers don't know.

[https://cleanpoweralliance.org/](https://cleanpoweralliance.org/)

What makes it even worse is that the rate comparison tools and calculators
available before the transition to CPA+SCE evaporated after the transition.
The SCE website has been a mess for about two years and not having access to
rate comparison tools makes it even worse. Billing and data clarity is
obfuscated, to say the least.

Some of us are now in the process of opting out of CPA just to that we can
talk to a single point of contact and actually discuss the bill. With CPA in
the loop it is impossible because CPA and SCE point fingers at each other and
consumers are left in the middle wondering what the heck happened.

Even beyond that, SCE told everyone that they had "grandfathered rates". This
are the TOU-D-A and TOU-D-B rates from a few years ago. One of the things that
changed radically with respect to that time is that some of the costs per kWh
have more than tripled. When inquiring about how this could happen with
"grandfathered rates" we were told that the _rate schedule_ was grandfathered
not the cost per kWh. In other words, the demarcation times between "On peak",
"Off peak" and "Super off peak" remain fixed but your cost per kWh changes.

This is the most dishonest use of the term "grandfathered" I have seen in my
life. This might not make sense to readers outside of the US. Here, the term
refers to a condition being protected from future changes. Anyone who heard
that term pretty much assumed their _costs_ were locked in, not just the times
for each rate. From my perspective this was a swindle.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause)

Frankly, this is about as anti-consumer as one can get. The average person
isn't equipped to run through even the simplest electrical power calculations,
they just don't understand. Add to this the complexities of tiered and time-
of-day systems, varying rates and costs of transport, energy vs. power
calculations, area under the power curve (which is what you pay for),
difficulty in understanding energy utilization, etc. and you have the makings
for a public that is powerless against this complexity.

I am quite comfortable with mathematics and complex financial modelling and
still had to devote hours to getting enough answers from SCE to attempt to
create a model in Excel in order to understand what happened during the last
few months, not just for us but also our neighbors. Even with that, the
decision had to be made to opt-out of CPA because the math is simply too
complex and nebulous. Not to mention that I have better things to do with my
life.

The decisions people like myself made a few years back --in my case the 13 kW
system-- were based on promises made --a contract-- with SCE. Never in my life
I would have thought that a system of this size would result in us having to
pay for electricity. And so here we are. If this continues the ROI will be
negative forever and the size of the system would either have to increase by
50% or more or batteries will have to be added in order to manage consumption
at lower rate-per-kWh times of the day (which can change at the will of SCE).

I am literally working on this as we speak, so the pain and aggravation is
fresh and real. At some point legal action might become the only recourse, I
don't know. My neighbors are absolutely livid, unlike me (I engineered, bought
and installed my own system), they ended-up with a range of leasing and other
arrangements from a number of different vendors. The typical systems these
vendors install are based on the rate structure at the time of system
installation and only seek to achieve a baseline cost structure between lease
payments and electricity purchase beyond generation. As rates and billing
complexity changed, some of these folks are finding out that their 3.5 kW
system is now almost useless and their electricity costs are going off the
rails. The trouble is, they will have to pay on these leases for years and
years.

This is a mess.

~~~
everybodyknows
> auto-magically signed-up for CPA (Clean Power Alliance).

This is a state-governed "CCA":

[https://cal-cca.org/about/members/](https://cal-cca.org/about/members/)

Legally a CCA is required to send two "opt-out" notices. Being jaded and
mistrustful, I did some research, and opted-out.

> Which is, as far as I am concerned, a government run scam

Only a slight exaggeration, by my experience. My city has lost money on the
adventure, by extending zero-interest loans, and then forgiving them.

The big winners are the power companies on the other side of the futures
contracts, local clean-power advocates who imagine they have somehow
"succeeded", and our city manager, who gets a trendy bullet item for his
resume.

Meanwhile, local for-profit power has begun offering a 100% renewable supply
option for about 3% less than the CCA.

~~~
fortran77
I opted out, too. I figured "It can't be without any downside as they say."
I'm glad I did.

~~~
everybodyknows
Might want to check city council records for hidden subsidies, covered of
course by taxes on people like you and me.

~~~
fortran77
Interesting. My (Sunnyvale, CA) city council is extremely corrupt. I'm not
sure I'll know what to look for, though.

------
vmception
Jeffrey Skilling is out of prison and working on a blockchain energy venture
with Lou Pai

Just check to make sure they arent holding California’s power for ransom
pending payment to a random Bitcoin address

------
tln
The article ends with:

“If there’s really a problem and not just the ISO jumping the gun, it’s going
to manifest tomorrow,” Mr. Marcus said. “Tomorrow evening, the wolf arrives.”

What is that referencing?

~~~
ArtRichards
He's talking about crying wolf today with no emergency, and then the wolf
actually showing up tomorrow.

------
scrumbledober
If the state could magically have enough battery capacity in every county to
smooth out this curve, what scale of battery installation would that take?

~~~
azernik
I don't have a lot of information about the scale required; however, I will
note that grid-attached energy storage is a big field that is not limited to
batteries. Batteries are generally more energy-efficient, but relatively
expensive per unit energy and power. Cheaper options tend to use physical
phenomena (pumping water up a gravity gradient, compressing air in caves, &c).

------
artiagarwal
So now West Coast is coming at par with the developing world.

------
spiritplumber
Wasn't this the B plot of the second Batman movie from the early 90s?

------
google234123
Only in California do you have to pay twice as much as the average on
electricity and also deal with these blackouts. Thanks environmentalists...

------
Lammy
The electricity might be off but the text message they sent to tell me about
it calls it an “outage” and not a “blackout” so at least their priorities are
in the right place :v

------
java-man
The sooner we switch to solar and grid battery storage, the better. There
should be no excuse whatsoever not to do that now.

What reasoning is holding us up?

~~~
qppo
> What reasoning is holding us up?

People turn their lights on when the sun goes down, and efficient energy
storage is the holy grail.

Also fun back of the napkin math with overestimates, if we have a totally
efficient Li+ battery with 0.25 kWh/kg energy density, and converted all the
world's 40 billion kg of lithium in the crust and oceans to batteries, we'd
get roughly 10 TWh of energy storage capacity. Which is enough to power
California for 19 days (we generate around 200TWh annually).

In reality we only have access to a tiny fraction of the world's Lithium
reserves, batteries aren't that efficient, they're heavy, dangerous, and all
that makes for an expensive technology ill suited for grid energy storage (and
alternatives like lead-acid are even worse).

Energy storage on the grid is going to look more like dams and reservoirs in
the mountains than battery arrays. Even that's not great, ideally we'd invest
more into nuclear energy for generating clean power on demand.

~~~
notJim
Are you saying 19 full days of energy storage? Why do we need 19 days? Isn't
it more like N hours per day, which can be recharged overnight and the
following day? This seems like a very disingenuous presentation of this
information.

~~~
Gibbon1
I remember seeing academics analysis of various storage methods that showed
how none of them could be scaled up to store 7 days worth of energy. And thus
solar and wind were infeasible.

There were two problems.

One he was using 7 days worth of storage. It's true that in the fossil fuel
industry 7 days of storage is standard. But that's because coal/oil/gas have
supply chain issues to deal with. So he was intentionally increasing the
required storage 10 fold.

The second. He studiously avoided any mention of thermal storage methods. Or
using natural gas as a back up. Both of which can be scaled up to meet his 7
day storage requirement.

~~~
Gibbon1
I see I pissed someone off. Whatever, you are who you are.

[https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/05/22/borehole-thermal-
ener...](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/05/22/borehole-thermal-energy-
storage-for-solar/)

------
YarickR2
I wonder what would Tesla owners do during fire-induced blackouts. With wrong
combination of returning from long drive to homes without power, and fire
hazard warnings, people owning only electrical cars could become trapped
really bad. Unfortunately, Teslas are a part of a problem for now, being power
hogs .

~~~
shiftpgdn
Most Tesla owners I know keep their cars at 80-90% charge every single day
since they have a charger at home. That's enough range to get you 4-5 hours
away from any would be wildfires.

