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Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

nytimes.com

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Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#61

Post by everybodyknows »

robomartin wrote: post #43

I think I can say that our entire neighborhood is up in arms about what's going on with SCE in general. In the last few months people have received bills that amount to 10 to 20 times their usual bill. In our case, with a 13 kW solar array, our usual bill is in the order of $15 per month and has been so for years. Last month our bill was $350 and the prior month $184. We have been sending excess energy to SCE for yea…

> auto-magically signed-up for CPA (Clean Power Alliance).

This is a state-governed "CCA":

https://cal-cca.org/about/members/

Legally a CCA is required to send two "opt-out" notices. Being jaded and mistrustful, I did some research, and opted-out.

> Which is, as far as I am concerned, a government run scam

Only a slight exaggeration, by my experience. My city has lost money on the adventure, by extending zero-interest loans, and then forgiving them.

The big winners are the power companies on the other side of the futures contracts, local clean-power advocates who imagine they have somehow "succeeded", and our city manager, who gets a trendy bullet item for his resume.

Meanwhile, local for-profit power has begun offering a 100% renewable supply option for about 3% less than the CCA.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#62

Post by hanniabu »

ISL wrote: post #55
etimberg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The resistance is not constant and is in fact a function of temperature [0]. Line sag is a proxy measurement for line temperature, since things expand as they heat up. From [1], most materials have positive alpha coefficients so the resistance increases with temperature. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_con... 1. https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chp...

The statement referred to heating driving sagging, which increased resistance. The increase of resistance with temperature is well-known -- I was curious if there is some effect that is directly related to the wire sag (changing morphology, somehow-altered surface area/skin-depth, changing kinks at the connections, some subtlety with increased length (cross-sectional area also increases), etc..).

Theoretically I would thing the sag itself should increase resistance since resistance increases with both length and smaller wire diameter. When the line lengthens the diameter should decrease (similar to stretching a piece of gum or putty).

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#63

Post by EdwardDiego »

dtwatljfk wrote: post #19
nimbius wrote: post #3

as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected. Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure. Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer from underreporting as they often dont have remote mo…

> but because NIMBY groups frequently oppose building or augmenting existing substations. Wild claims related to electromagnetism basically kill the project at every level. Can you elaborate? A substation is about to start construction just across the (narrow) street from my child's elementary school.

I used to work in the contact centre for my country's radio spectrum regulators, we'd get numerous phone calls from people who were terrified of or complaining about the "radiation" part of "electromagnetic radiation" from power equipment or celltowers or radio transmitters.

I'd say 1/3 were reassured by my explanation of why non-ionising radiation isn't going to harm your unborn child/give you cancer[1], 1/3 decided I was a lying tool of the Establishment and They Knew The Truth, and the last 1/3 had a genuine mental illness - "No you don't understand, the Prime Minister has authorised the Police to monitor my TV viewing using radio waves and it's giving my family cancer".

[1]Unless you're climbing a transmitter tower and exposing your womb to a focused microwave beam at a very close range for a substantial period, then the heating effect probably isn't going to be doing good things.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#64

Post by fortran77 »

everybodyknows wrote: post #61
robomartin wrote: post #43

I think I can say that our entire neighborhood is up in arms about what's going on with SCE in general. In the last few months people have received bills that amount to 10 to 20 times their usual bill. In our case, with a 13 kW solar array, our usual bill is in the order of $15 per month and has been so for years. Last month our bill was $350 and the prior month $184. We have been sending excess energy to SCE for yea…

> auto-magically signed-up for CPA (Clean Power Alliance). This is a state-governed "CCA": https://cal-cca.org/about/members/ Legally a CCA is required to send two "opt-out" notices. Being jaded and mistrustful, I did some research, and opted-out. > Which is, as far as I am concerned, a government run scam Only a slight exaggeration, by my experience. My city has lost money on the adventure, by extending zero-interes…

I opted out, too. I figured "It can't be without any downside as they say." I'm glad I did.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#65

Post by grandinj »

dehrmann wrote: post #28
java-man wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not have to be one giant storage plant. The installation could be decentralized: [0] https://phys.org/news/2018-02-tesla-australia-homes-power.ht...

Centralized is cheaper to install and maintain, though. Rather than dispatching an electrician to a home every time its battery has a problem, a farm keeps electricians on-staff and replacement parts in-stock. Installation is cheaper for the same reason.

Up to a point yes. Decentralised is also nice if co-sited with substations because the utility can use it to flatten out spikes/dips and generally make other parts of the infrastructure happier, which reduces maintenance costs on those other parts.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#66

Post by fortran77 »

YarickR2 wrote: post #41

I wonder what would Tesla owners do during fire-induced blackouts. With wrong combination of returning from long drive to homes without power, and fire hazard warnings, people owning only electrical cars could become trapped really bad. Unfortunately, Teslas are a part of a problem for now, being power hogs .

Most tesla owners have a couple hundred miles of range. I'd be worried about LEAF owners with 65 mile ranges.

The LEAF people at my former company complained that Teslas shouldn't be allowed to plug in in the limited chargnig spots because they need to be able to plug in to get home! Fortunately, the company said "tough. First come first served."

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#67

Post by tolbish »

lisper wrote: post #47

Every year you hear about horrible heat waves and fires in California but I'm here to tell you from my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different. I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years. We bought a brand new spec house. It was built without air conditioning. The developer said we wouldn't need it. We installed it anyway because we came from LA and a house in California without A/C did not fit into our…

It would be wonderful if we had the ability to directly manipulate weather and a climate on a large scale. Imagine being able to affect weather patterns to cool down or turn the heat up on certain segments of the population.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#70

Post by aaomidi »

cheezerman wrote: post #69

What's going to happen when they close Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant? [1] It currently provides 9% of the state's power (2256MW). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant

Percentage isn't the issue. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant provides the base power usage, which isn't the issue that's causing the blackouts.

Looking at raw percentage numbers for blackouts is wrong because this is an issue of not having enough capacity during peak, which nuclear doesn't solve.

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