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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

#241

Post by forgotmysn »

davisr wrote: post #150
nrki wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a great source. Science is based on evidence, not lack of evidence. A rebuttal to that article appears in the same publication, and adroitly takes apart it's claims: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/dont-fall-...

Thanks, I didn't know about this article. I'm not heavily one way or the other, but I think it's important to put all the information out there.

if you're not heavy one way or the other, than you probably shouldnt shill the the fake propaganda of one of them

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#242

Post by forgotmysn »

davisr wrote: post #225
noodlesUK wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular feeling, of having a compulsion to share scary information without a strong knowledge base, and then retreating to this sort of position “I think it’s important to put all the information out there” is well described, specifically on this topic, by a recent post by Troy hunt. https://www.troyhunt.com/lets-stop-the-5g-hysteria-understan...

Well, from me it wasn't a strong compulsion. However, for many reasons (especially about privacy) we ought not to implement 5G. And this wasn't an article about some conspiracy--it was from an expert who is advising we tread cautiously about what we do not know, and that is very good advice. I don't think anyone can confirm or deny that 5G carries health risks. But, we do have evidence there are health risks with oth…

1. it was strong enough for you to post

2. please try to explain the security issues that 5G presents that aren't present in 4G, 3G, etc.

3. a lack of information is not an excuse to promote doubt and misinformation. part of the reason we haven't been able to measure the long-term effects of cellular radiation is that it takes time to run those studies. please stop promoting lies and undermining trust in the systems that help manage our society

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#243

Post by danans »

Marsymars wrote: post #216
WalterBright wrote: post #178

One way to deal with this is to have variable electric rates - cheaper rates when plenty of power is available, and more expensive when less. This incentivizes consumers to time shift their usage. For example, evening A/C use can be time shifted to the day, by cooling the house more during the day, so less is needed in the evening. The thermal mass of a house has a lot of inertia (and can be increased by adding, say,…

It's crazy to me that it isn't a thing. There's a bunch of stuff (laundry, dishes, RAID snapshots) that I can schedule to run any time, but there's zero incentive not to run them all at peak times.

But it is a thing [1]. Some consumers have just chosen not to opt in, often paying more overall for electricity as a result. That's why the public utilities commission has started mandating them by default, with an opt out policy instead.

People don't voluntarily change their electricity rate plan.

When they do, usually it's when they're existing rate plan expires, and in CA there's been a lot of marketing at that time to get them to switch to time of use rates, usually by trying to explain to them how much they will save by shifting their usage.

But most people don't want to think about when they use electricity - they want to use it when they want to use it.

That's why there is now a California government mandate for variable rate plans.

Going forward, we need truly dynamic rate plans and consumer appliances that support automatic load shifting (i.e an electric clothes dryer that let's you set a deadline for clothes drying and then optimizes when it runs), and along with that, people broadly becoming better educated about how electricity pricing works.

1. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-utilities-prep-n...

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#244

Post by rconti »

bgutierrez wrote: post #151
scrumbledober wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been here my entire life. This is pretty bad. In my 30 years i've definitely never experienced a hot summer thunderstorm like the other night. It feels very bizarre.

Same. Never before seen a thunderstorm where no precipitation hit the ground. The heat doesn't feel so new to me. As a kid I was always watching for those 100F+ days with the fascination of hitting triple digits. I have 30+ years of seeing those. The thunderstorm was crazy tho.

that thunderstorm WAS epic, best I've seen since I lived here. Had the windows open all night, it was wonderful. it rained pretty hard at times here (Redwood City)

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#245

Post by rconti »

c3534l wrote: post #207

I remember hearing about rolling blackouts in California as this mysterious problem that occurred after privatization, then after Enron broke, it was revealed that they'd been engineering blackouts in pump & dump schemes. Any chance there's a relationship between these blackouts and the older ones? Or are we sure this is some completely new phenomenon?

According to the news, this is the first rolling blackout since 2001, which, yeah, was bogus.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#246

Post by robomartin »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #189
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…

Yeah, I got a pretty huge power bill last month and was trying to calculate my rate to figure out how much I could save where. Doing this is actually pretty confusing with the bill you get. Tier 1 from SCE for us is $.106/kwh. Tier 2 is $.165/kwh. Plus: 1. CCA surcharge (whatever that means) is $.0224/kwh for PCIA (whatever that is) 2. CCA surcharge is $.00580/kwh for DWR bond (whatever DWR is) 3. CCA surcharge is $.…

Peak charges here (generation + delivery) are $0.56/kWh. That's insane. When I put in the solar array this number was $0.16. And I was told my rate was grandfathered in.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#247

Post by a-dub »

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…

> its also worth noting that the nytimes might not be taking into account the number of people working from home. Duty and loadcycles for this year are going to be very hard to predict.

ahh yes, seems like the "looking for toilet paper in all the wrong places" phenomenon where there's no lack of supply, but the existing supply lines head to the wrong places. (all the industrial/office stuff is idled, while rural locations are blasting AC in ways they've never seen before)

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#248

Post by rconti »

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…

We have Peninsula Clean Energy which is actually cheaper than PG&E (unless you pay the small upcharge for '100% renewable', which we do).. however, it makes your bill impossible to comprehend. TOU, different tiers, different buckets depending on time of year, generation charges, generation credits.. add solar on top of that... net metering 2.0... good luck!

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#249

Post by rconti »

icedistilled wrote: post #224
WalterBright wrote: post #178

One way to deal with this is to have variable electric rates - cheaper rates when plenty of power is available, and more expensive when less. This incentivizes consumers to time shift their usage. For example, evening A/C use can be time shifted to the day, by cooling the house more during the day, so less is needed in the evening. The thermal mass of a house has a lot of inertia (and can be increased by adding, say,…

SCE is trying to shift people to time of use rates. The problem is the time of use rates are terrible, and will be more expensive to anyone who normally stays within tier one rates of the old plan. I'd end up paying about 30% more for power under any of their time of use rate plans even assuming I only use power in off peak times, despite owning a plug in hybrid. If you stay within their tier one rates on the old pla…

As someone without A/C, switching to TOU saved quite a bit of money (relatively speaking; my bills were not very large to begin with).

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#250

Post by stevespang »

"As California ISO began taking its emergency actions on Saturday, electricity wholesale costs jumped on its energy market. The prices fluctuate based on how much electricity must pass through the wires. The more electricity that must get through a particular line, the higher the price, much like increased toll prices on a highway during traffic congestion. Prices in locations near the Tahoe area across the state line to Reno and Carson City, Nev., spiked into the thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour, far above the typical costs of under $100."

I smell somebody making money off this scheme and likely "kickbacks" involved.

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