California's "notorious brownouts" exist only in the imaginations of habitual Fox News watchers. There hasn't been a load-related power outage in CAISO territory in several years. In August 2020 there was a 2.5-hour (at most) outage for fewer than 1 million customers that was due to a demand/supply emergency. That was the only intentional blackout in the last 25 years.
There have been sporadic rolling brownouts in the last couple of years, that said, CALISO has also had regional power outages due to high winds - Santa Cruz Mountains, above Oroville/northern CA, etc. Let's also not forget the significant number of outages that happen regularly due to lack of maintenance on infrastructure in mountainous and rural areas.
I happen to have a coop that has been more stable the last 8 years mainly because when there is a PG&E outage, there is back up power from Nevada Energy (or whatever it's called).
Also on the line maintenance front - Dixie Fire. Granted there are tree maintenance, property owner problems, etc.
For an all electric infrastructure, more generation and better maintained infrastructure is needed. I think microgrids for areas that have the open land would be something to consider.
Switching the primary energy source from solar or wind to nuclear wouldn't do anything about the need to de-energize certain branch circuits during high wind events. It's worth discussing, but it doesn't make sense as an antisolar talking point.
I seem to remember socal edison doing preventative brown outs during the santa ana winds last year. Maybe its not a load related brownout, but for customers it hardly matters why the power is out, only that its out.
Your conclusion is correct, but most of these shutoffs don't affect anybody. The utility has to announce them but usually they don't cut anybody off. There was only one event in 2023 during which SCE de-energized more than single digits of customers.
https://www.caiso.com/Documents/Grid-Emergencies-History-Rep...