PG&E CEO: California Can Expect A Decade Of Blackouts

[hatrack]

The CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. told California energy regulators that the state will likely see blackouts for another 10 years like the one imposed last week that left as many as 800,000 customers without power.

The revelation by corporation CEO Bill Johnson came Friday at a California Public Utilities Commission meeting at which he said his company is trying to reduce the chances of wildfires by trimming more trees and using technology to target smaller areas of the grid when fire dangers require power outages. But Johnson said it could take 10 years before such outages are “really ratcheted down significantly.”

PG&E has come near universal criticism for its lack of planning in shutting off power and its failure to adequately handle customers’ questions while the outages lasted. PUC president Marybel Batjer blasted utility officials saying, “what we saw play out by PG&E last week cannot be repeated.”

During the blackouts, Johnson admitted that his company had not been prepared for the impact of the outages, including the crashing of the utility’s website and call centers being overwhelmed with customers’ concerns. But Johnson still maintains that the outages, which the company calls Public Safety Power Shutoff events, were necessary to ensure safety in the face of seasonally high winds that can damage power lines and lead to wildfires.

EDIT

https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/10/california-can-expect-blackouts-for-a-decade-says-pge-ceo-power-outage-in-fall-2019-could-cost-california-economy-more-than-2-billion.html

[AllaN01Bear]

1. because pg and e fails years of nelegct of cleaning under their lines and repairing their equpment

i dont know if they also ignored court orders to turn off power when they should have . this is a wake up call for all of us .

[RockRaven]

2. Yeah, we know that is your cynical play -- strong-arm the state into bailing you out

one way or another (massive subsidy, some degree of tort limitation, etc) by maximizing consumer inconvenience/pain until your get your hand-out. But maybe we should just tell you to fuck off and just end your company? How much do you want to gamble on this game of chicken, Mr PG&E CEO?

[BigmanPigman]

3. Huh? Fires TODAY and they are responsible but no rolling blackouts?!?!?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2386119

"PG&E says transmission lines malfunctioned near start of Kincade Fire".
"The transmission line was not among the lines de-energized in Sonoma county," Johnson said, adding "They did not meet the conditions that we forecast for transmission outage. We relied on the protocol and we still at this point do not know what happened."

[2naSalit]

4. Time to get rid of

privately owned utilities. How about point source power generation? Lots of those methods don't cause fires. And large blackouts don't happen.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Totally agree.

There was a time in my youth when utilities were city/state owned,
You knew who to yell at if they screwed up, and they had to be responsive to the customers.

[2naSalit]

9. And they maintained their equipment

because the clients owned it and budgeted for such things. They weren't all about "the bottom line"... they were a public service.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Need to have local control of water, too

Cal. is famous for water wars related to money.

[2naSalit]

12. That's true all over the west.

But all these services need to be public utilities, period. Unless you generate your own power for yourself, it should be provided by a public utility.

[mopinko]

5. dear ca- go solar.

dang i would be off the grid so fast if i lived out there.
state should roll out some money for this, pronto.

[stopwastingmymoney]

7. My neighbors have solar and it apparently doesn't work without power

I’m not sure of the ins and outs there, but she ran a cord over this morning to my generator

[NickB79]

13. If you're grid-tied, solar doesn't work. No battery bank

Essentially, you feed power into the grid by day and you're using the grid at night as a meta-battery, because adding a battery bank can add thousands to a solar install. But, no grid, no power.

[stopwastingmymoney]

6. I'm glad I bought a generator

And, I’m grateful that my hot water heater worked when the electric was out

Sigh...

[The River]

10. It's Like Camping Out

in your own home.
I have all the gear, why not use it?
I can cook and heat water on my Coleman camp stove.
If all else fails..I can use my new generator.