Current standards allow power shutoffs when certain temperature, RH, and wind speed criteria are met. These balance the utility's obligation to serve (reliability) against safety. My argument is that this balance needs to be struck differently. Safety
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The reason that hasn't happened is customer impacts when power shutoffs do occur. So far, the
@californiapuc has focussed on better notification of power shutoffs. Reality is that people are very unhappy about shutoffs even when they know in advance.https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/PG-E-warns-it-may-shut-off-power-amid-red-flag-13306256.php …1 reply 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread -
I argue that the solution is to make people indifferent to grid reliability by up-front investments in distributed storage and possibly generation as well. That would allow customers to ride out safety related outages with minimal or no discomfort or inconvenience.
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Another way to explain my thinking is that we need to value the safety/reliability tradeoff in the high risk areas. We don't really do that explicitly in deciding how much to spend on grid-supplied electricity. My proposal starts to tiptoe down that path in this unique context.
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One additional advantage of this idea is that the mitigation (distributed resources) can be implemented much faster than the alternative approaches to reducing fire risk (undergrounding and vegetation management).
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Politically, this approach has several advantages over the alternatives: (1) its a proactive plan instead of a reactive one; (2) it involves creating thousands of (apparently) new jobs in many regions of California; (3) it creates an opportunity to reinvent energy access;
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(4) it will not involve giving money to the utilities either to bail them out or for them to ratebase the undergrounding tens of thousands of miles worth of wires; (5) it will enable all kinds of innovation in home energy management that will position CA energy firms as leaders.
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How much would it cost? My back of the envelope guess is that we could make a major improvement in the safety of wildfire prone communities with a $30 billion commitment. That's a number equal to about what we lost in the Napa/Sonoma Complex Fires (2017) and the Camp Fire.
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But it's important to remember that these systems would be customer owned. There are all kinds of options about how to pay for all or parts of them. We aren't stuck just rate basing the solution (not that PG&E is in much of a position right now for a big Capex campaign anyway).
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#wildfires in California are a crisis. One solution won't fix them. But this solution could help a lot in terms of keeping people and communities safe. And unlike many other ideas, it would provide multiple benefits to multiple stakeholders. It turns a crisis into an opportunity.3 replies 0 retweets 9 likesShow this thread
So you’re saying #greennewdeal to hire workers to install... batteries and micro grids?
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Replying to @kimmaicutler
Yes but not on its own. I'm saying that this is a part of a California specific
#GND. It involves lots of jobs. It will revolutionize energy for rural areas of the state. It focusses on both mitigation and resilience. But it leaves out housing and transport. So not a full#GND.0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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