Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

kqed.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 92 posts

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#31

Post by throwaway2037 »

infotainment wrote: post #7

The angle of this that people may not realize is that San Francisco already owns the power generation (ie, the Hetch Hetchy dam). [1] PG&E simply owns the wires, and overcharges for their use. [1]: https://www.sfpuc.gov/about-us/our-systems/hetch-hetchy-powe...

About that dam, Wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Shaughnessy_Dam_(Californi...

... that it produces about 976 GWh per year. A few different sources say that SF uses about 5-6 TWh per year. So that is slightly less than 20% of total power needs. Still, it is a good start.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#32

Post by throwaway2037 »

This part bothers me:

    > Dabit’s energy problems reached a new level in December when a PG&E substation fire caused a three-day power outage for the neighborhood. In addition to losing business, Dabit lost $10,000 to $15,000 worth of ingredients.
(1) Why didn't the owner have insurance for food spoilage? Since it is rare event, it is probably very cheap. The old saying: "Buy insurance for (emergency) expenses that you cannot afford." This seems like a text book case.

(2) Why didn't the owner immediately run to a hardware store to buy a portable (diesel?) generator to save as much food as possible? At least run one fridge and pack the most expensive ingredients into that one fridge.

Overall: My sympathy is low for the owner's situation.

If the city buys (or runs) its own (traditional) electricity utility, they will be assuming all of the wildfire risk. That is the primary cause of rises electricity rates by PG&E in the last ten years. However, if SF wants to create some power generation in the form of solar panels and batteries or wind, then sign power trade agreements with PG&E, I think that could be tenable/workable. If they spent 100M USD per year building truly reliable, green power generation, then 10 years later would look much better.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#33

Post by naturalmovement »

winocm wrote: post #27

On the note of PG&E, my electric bill averages to about $750 despite only running an air conditioner, several device chargers, a router, some lights and a fridge... Thanks PG&E.

No wonder people are fleeing California in droves. There is absolutely no justification for a bill that high other than malfeasance or gross mismanagement. That is straight-up theft of your money.

For comparison, I have double that plus electric appliances and a home-lab with 6 rack servers that run 24/7 and my bill rarely tops $175 in the dead of summer. And I like the thermostat cold.

If you live in a duplex or condo I would consider if your meter is miswired (with your neighbor's meter daisy-chained to yours) and you are being double-billed. It is more common than you think and often goes undiscovered for years.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#34

Post by throwaway2037 »

DuckConference wrote: post #24
simoncion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The angle of this that people may not realize is that San Francisco already owns the power generation (ie, the Hetch Hetchy dam). My conclusion might be totally wrong because I'm converting from units that aren't meant to be converted, but... If you filter down to only San Francisco County on this official-looking thingie [0], you see that it claims the city [1] has 5.126 TWh of consumption. Your link [2] claims He…

I would assume 395MW is the nameplate capacity, so you would multiply it by a capacity factor and time to get the energy production in a specific interval. Capacity factor in hydro can vary a lot by season and how much they want to produce vs reservoir levels, but for a back of the envelope 100% capacity factor you have 395 MW × 8,760 hours/year = 3.46TWh/year . Capacity factor could be in the high 90s in good condit…

    > Capacity factor could be in the high 90s in good conditions and maximum production but I expect it's a lot lower unless it's a wet year with very few big maintenance jobs needed.
Most rivers this far away from the equator don't receive the same inflows each season. For example, the spring will have very high flow due to melting snow in the mountains that feed that reservoir. I guess the winter has the lowest flow because snow melts much less in the winter.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#35

Post by pengaru »

AIUI This relationship between PG&E and SF/CPUC has a corrupt history dating back to the 90s with Willie Brown and later even Kamala Harris.

It's a part of why Republicans actually have some grounds for calling Harris corrupt - Willie Brown's office when mayor of SF was notorious for being a pay-to-play situation, she worked there (and even dated him).

  > Or, as Supervisor Aaron Peskin described it, “mind-boggling.” He said
  > the “city family” that grew up under Mayor Willie Brown, continued
  > working under Mayor Gavin Newsom, flourished under Mayor Ed Lee and
  > stayed on under Breed “were all doing favors for one another and
  > living in their own little bubble.”
  >
  > “They all convinced each other that they were like a family, and
  > family can give gifts to their children,” Peskin said, noting those
  > same family members took the city’s required annual ethics training
  > like everybody else and must have known what they were doing was
  > wrong.
  >
  > “They just got too cozy over too much time, and they lost their way,”
  > Peskin said. “Now I have to look at everybody going, ‘Are you a
  > crook?’ It’s not the way I want to see the world.”
from: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/S-...

It's trivial to find articles about the conflicts of interests between Brown and PG&E, I think even to this day he still represents their interests.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#36

Post by stephen_g »

NewJazz wrote: post #20
simoncion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The angle of this that people may not realize is that San Francisco already owns the power generation (ie, the Hetch Hetchy dam). My conclusion might be totally wrong because I'm converting from units that aren't meant to be converted, but... If you filter down to only San Francisco County on this official-looking thingie [0], you see that it claims the city [1] has 5.126 TWh of consumption. Your link [2] claims He…

Power generation facilities are typically quoted in terms of Watts, not Watt-hours. From an era where these were fossil fuel or nuclear plants or dams that provided a pretty steady level of energy. It indicates what the generation facility/asset can produce at any given moment, although if rivers run dry hydro output can decrease. I think the numbers you cite in [0] are in terms of total annual consumption.

It's not really anything to do with "an era where these [...] provided a pretty steady level of energy", it's just the only way that makes sense to describe it in any case.

Demand is always instantaneous, and transmission lines from a generator need to be sized for the maximum instantaneous generation, so in terms of the size of (any kind of) generator it's the main thing you're interested in. Capacity factor brings in seasonal / daily output variation but that's a whole different thing.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#38

Post by striking »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #32

This part bothers me: > Dabit’s energy problems reached a new level in December when a PG&E substation fire caused a three-day power outage for the neighborhood. In addition to losing business, Dabit lost $10,000 to $15,000 worth of ingredients. (1) Why didn't the owner have insurance for food spoilage? Since it is rare event, it is probably very cheap. The old saying: "Buy insurance for (emergency) expenses that you…

1. Spoilage claims are not usually covered by insurance if the power interruption starts at the utility company instead of in your building. It's pretty rare that anyone knows to ask for that particular endorsement, and you're SoL without it.

2. You don't think everyone else was thinking the same thing?

Also, you can just have sympathy for people even if it were their own mistake. It doesn't cost you anything.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#39

Post by lokar »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #32

This part bothers me: > Dabit’s energy problems reached a new level in December when a PG&E substation fire caused a three-day power outage for the neighborhood. In addition to losing business, Dabit lost $10,000 to $15,000 worth of ingredients. (1) Why didn't the owner have insurance for food spoilage? Since it is rare event, it is probably very cheap. The old saying: "Buy insurance for (emergency) expenses that you…

The fires have been caused by the transmission grid, not the distribution grid. SF would be taking the distribution. There is not a ton of wildfire risk from the electric utility in SF, and it would be fairly easy to manage.

Restaurants have very thin margins, they can’t afford that stuff.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#40

Post by plorkyeran »

FrankWilhoit wrote: post #3

CPUC exists. CAISO exists. The consumer experience is still bad. What this means is that there is not enough generation . This is not a matter of whether PG&E is "privately" or "publicly" owned, because nearly all large utilities are already a weird mixture of both. Public ownership might have different incentives, but not sufficiently different to allow rates to be lowered substantially (unless it were a case of ove…

This is just very straightforwardly incorrect. Last month I paid Ava Energy $26 for electric energy generation, and PG&E $99 for delivery. Cutting the generation cost to $0 would only reduce my bill by 20%. Ava Energy says that 70% of the power I used came from solar located within my city, so it's already located quite close to demand.
Post reply on HN