Posted on 06/21/2019 1:35:46 AM PDT by metmom
An “avian incident” sparked a fire at one of California’s biggest solar farms, affecting 1,200 acres and knocking out 84% of the California Valley Solar Ranch’s generating capacity.
The June 5 incident didn’t damage solar panels at the 250-megawatt power plant, but distribution poles and cables need to be replaced, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday from owner Clearway Energy Inc. The company didn’t say exactly how the blaze was ignited.
“We are pleased that in the aftermath of the fire at California Valley Solar Ranch, our team and first responders were able to ensure the safety of the surrounding community, our employees, and fire officials,” the company said by email. “While fires remain an unfortunate and growing reality in California and across the west, incidents such as these give us continued confidence in our risk prevention and mitigation plans.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I told them the damned things kill and roast birds. They didn’t care.
BTT
Calizuela.
“Avian accident” = “Bird kill” with a press agent
California has become India. The irony, given what H1-B did to Silicon Valley is pretty rich.
They should borrow the odd/even policy of the Carter days if you have an odd zip code you get power on odd dates.
Holy flaming sandhill crane, Batman...
Even grid-scale backup wouldn't have helped, as the main distribution lines were affected. Distributed backup plus the remaining grid WOULD have worked.
The key to intermittent energy source use is to encourage homeowners to install Tesla (or other similar) powerwall storage in their homes, with or without home power generation. And yes, at this point, economically it would require some kind of subsidy.
They can put their ‘green energy’ where the sun don’t shine.... :)
For real!!
"Avian incident"? Who do these guys think they are? The FBI? Can't disclose the details because why? It would reveal "sources and methods"? Endanger agents?
Three things are obvious from the story. It's ridiculously easy to take out a solar farm. The details of what happened are embarrassing. The press is more than willing to cover it up.
It is not just in California. Here in NH the state/towns had to force Eversource to clear the lines going down all the roads throughout towns. What they had decided to do until just a couple years ago is let the trees grow and only go out and cut them down or trim them until AFTER they caused a power outage. This got so bad a few years ago when ice storms caused people to lose power for weeks in some cases.
Eventually, everyone like me that lives around here invested in a generator. I have a Honda 7500 Watt gasoline powered. My daughters house has a whole house propane powered generator. It turns itself on within 2 minutes if it senses a power loss. New single family subdivisions are now built with back up generators as part of your standard package.
Keep in mind that NH is now about 80% forested. The main softwood tree species is Eastern White Pine. They grow like weeds around here. They look very similar to the trees in the right foreground of your posted picture. They tend to be shallow rooted and top heavy. They tend to blow over and or break in high winds. They also break often when we great that wet heavy snow early in the fall/winter or early spring.
Mother Nature’s Vengeance against the Finch Fryalaters and Birdie Blenders.
“Imagine, all our freezers full of food gone, our elderly and babies getting sick from the heat, etc.”
It happened here when we had power:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Chicago_heat_wave
L
Depends, some birds just get their feathers singed.
What will people use after Kalifornia outlaws generators? Free energy machines?
Der-regulation of the electric generators and (separately) of the electric distribution was also how ENRON twisted its rate charges and secondary markets into billions of “apparent” profit - which pulled up its overall stock.
Happened during the Bush I - Clinton years years, while Bush II was governor of TX. Interesting coincidence, right? ENRON failed outright under the early Bush II years, when he refused to bail them out from Washington from their scheme.
For the whole utility scheme however, deregulation encouraged short-term generation policies - “Run them until they break!” - over long-term maintain-generate-maintain-generate-maintain economic planning.
All that separate from this hysteria of climate change and ITS central planning for failure.
But! Enron (under Clinton) DID begin the carbon trading schemes that promised 30 trillions per year in perpetual money laundering markets!
In GA-AL-SC-FL, in fact in all parts of the “real world” outside of CA, that’s how power line right-of-way are STILL maintained!
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