Online responses to a letter to the editor of my local paper calling PG&E’s PSPS a stunt:
PSPS is the acronym for “Public Safety Power Shutoff”.
New Ca law (enacted by PUC and signed by Gov Newsome) REQUIRES utilities (ALL, not just PG&E) to de-energize areas that face severe wind threat/ fire risk.
This has the Doppler effect of potentially impacting huge swaths of the State if that threat impacts a “Transmission” (500/230KV) Tower corridor(s).
When that level of shut off is enacted, you don’t just flip a switch back on. The law requires PG&E to physically/visually inspect every single piece of equipment (down voltage) of the shut down BEFORE it can be re-energized. This means every tower, line, transformer, pad apparatus, substation, pole, reclosure, etc.
This is why a 2 day event can potentially keep areas dark for several days after the threat has passed. It is a MASSIVE man hrs. labor intensive process on 24/7 overtime staffing.
PG&E loses HUGE $$ when this is enacted as thousands of meters are not spinning and the labor cost to comply is huge. They don’t want to do these. They are legally mandated to now. This is the arrangement that was brokered through the PUC to balance the conflicting liability/service reliability laws. It is all driven because of California’s “Inverse Condemnation” liability conflict with PUC’s previous fining of the Company based on outage reliability.
Prior, power shut off or outage = fine. Leave it on, and have ANY% role in a fire= 100% liability.
If a limb 1/4 mile away blew into a transmission line and brought down hot conductor starting a fire?
PG&E liable. No such thing as “Act of God” factored.
No other State in the Nation has these asinine conflicts of law.
So, to make this real. This is analogous to you knowing your daughter MAY have a bad hair dryer. Until she leaves, you shut your house main off. Now, by law, before you can flip the main switch back on, you must hire an electrician to inspect (and document) every breaker below your main, every wire in your attic, every wall switch, every outlet, etc. Then, you must one by one phase in all your breakers so you don’t shock load the system, then you have to go back and program all your digital electronics.
Multiply this by 50K square miles.
And another:
Take a drive this weekend out HWY 128 or up the Coast on 101 and look at the miles and miles of rural terrain that PG&E will have to tackle in order to carry out your suggestion. Start tallying up what the cost of each mile will be to put underground and then decide if that is what you want to pay for. We have an obviously fragile, old system that does need upgrades (no one would argue about that) but when it comes to actually doing it the effort and cost will be outrageous. We have about a month until the rains set in and our tinder dry fuel will become wet and the threat of a wildfire subsides. Until that happens I’m happy to put up with a shutoff as long as they have my best interests in mind. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
And one more:
Funny that everyone is blaming PG&E. The PUC folks are appointed to the board by your elected officials. YOU VOTE FOR THESE PEOPLE they are YOUR leaders. YOUR leaders are making laws that make PG&E power down the lines. Keep voting for one party rule it seam to be working for ya California.
The last one really has it. This is something this state votes for. Politicians point the finger everywhere but at themselves. They create the environemnt where things like mass homelessness,high crime rates, and loss of power occur and blame everything but their laws that created the circumstance.
Aerial application of Roundup or Agent orange on the right-of-way would eliminate most of the danger.
"Funny that everyone is blaming PG&E."
Yet PG&E exemplifies the left’s “stakeholder” model, according to which businesses are accountable not only to their shareholders but also their workers, the environment and local communities and society at large. In practice, that means businesses exist to serve their political overlords.
re: “Start tallying up what the cost of each mile will be to put underground “
HERE’S the d*mn problem with know-nothing LAYMAN proposing solutions - THESE PPL ARE IN THE SAME CATEGORY OF NITWITS COMMANDING 60% OF POWER COME FROM RENEWABLES!!!!!
See, LAYMAN know NOTHING about the losses buried HV lines SUFFER from dielectric losses - HUGE CURRENTS flow in such lines DUE TO the HIGH capacitance and the high CHARGING VOLTAGES used on HV transmission circuits.