Pacific Gas & Electric planned shutdown today

[bcla]

This is the first time I've been worried about this. Our regional electric utility has already cut off power to hundreds of thousands of homes as a supposed preventative because of high winds and dry conditions. Recall their power lines are what started the Camp Fire that eventually burned through Paradise, California.

My wife says our power is still on but apparently that's been delayed. The winds aren't very high, but are expected to whip up tonight. And reports are that when the power is turned on in each area they'll look to inspect every single line in the neighborhood.

 

[ImDMous]

We have the same situation coming up on Friday with San Diego G & E. I haven't looked at the map yet, but it's supposed to be a large area. Guess we'll see how it goes.

 

[ImarriedGrumpy]

Our house isn't in one of the zones scheduled to be shut off, but there are large sections of the city that PG&E says they will be shutting down later today. Given that this will mean no street lights, no traffic signals, no gas pumps, etc., I think it's going to really affect traffic and transit throughout the region. We've also heard that it could take several days for the power to be restored, so I imagine it's going to be a mess throughout the area. Our district has 4 schools in the affected area, and they're saying they'll still be open. I declined the sub jobs at those schools as soon as I learned about this. I can't imagine trying to teach without power in the school.

 

[tvguy]

This is the first time I've been worried about this. Our regional electric utility has already cut off power to hundreds of thousands of homes as a supposed preventative because of high winds and dry conditions. Recall their power lines are what started the Camp Fire that eventually burned through Paradise, California.

My wife says our power is still on but apparently that's been delayed. The winds aren't very high, but are expected to whip up tonight. And reports are that when the power is turned on in each area they'll look to inspect every single line in the neighborhood.

We had a lot of questions today from viewers asking why their power was being cut if it wasn't very windy in their area. Usually that is because somewhere along the route that the power comes from to your house is windy.

 

[barkley]

a family member's area was shut down this morning and they are being advised it could be 3-5 days minimum. their school district had already cancelled school for the rest of the week when pg&e sent out the notification yesterday. where they live they are on well so no water as well, and pg&e cut the power to the cell towers as well so no cell coverage.

 

[gillep]

We aren't in a shutoff zone, but they are all around us, and one is a little close for comfort considering some people who are not in one of the zones have called PG&E and been told the maps aren't accurate and that they will lose power, so who knows. We were supposed to have two phases, one at midnight last night and the second at noon today, I still have power so I think I got lucky with this one. At least one school district in our area is closed for the next two days, but considering the alerts going out say that power could be out up to 7 days I have a feeling that may change, not sure what those kids/educators are going to do if that actually happens.

The most frustrating thing has been that the PG&E site has not been able to handle the excess traffic so it is very difficult to determine if you are in one of the shutoff zones or not. Thankfully, both of the local papers and our county website has had maps that we can actually access, so that's good.

I went to the weather channel's website earlier to look up something for this weekend and right on the front page was a story about the outages, and now there is a story about curfews due to the outages, which is news to me, and hasn't been in any of the many alerts that PG&E has sent to me, so that's fun, communication so far could absolutely be better.

I have to go out tonight and I am not looking forward to the potential issues with traffic lights being out. If I had known about this earlier I could have rescheduled but by the time we were notified it was too late.

ETA: the curfew is actually only for one specific area, very close to me, but not where I am, so that's why we weren't alerted, that makes me feel a bit better. I absolutely feel for all of the law enforcement officers during this time, this is going to be rough for them, people are really worried about looting and getting a bit jumpy based on the online comments I have been reading.

 

[JaxDad]

What are the forecasted wind speeds? How large an area are they supposed to be affecting?

 

[bcla]

What are the forecasted wind speeds? How large an area are they supposed to be affecting?

I heard estimated as high as 65 MPH gusts. And these are substantial and spread out areas across much of Northern California.

https://abc7news.com/society/pg-e-power-outage-timeline-when-your-power-could-come-back/5603844/

 

[disneychrista]

We were warned that our area would shut off and surrounding areas did but not in my neighborhood. The power is off less than 2 miles from my house.

 

[low-key]

We were warned that our area would shut off and surrounding areas did but not in my neighborhood. The power is off less than 2 miles from my house.

ya know you just jinxed yourself

 

[disneychrista]

ya know you just jinxed yourself

I know. Still not planned to shut the power off but that doesn't mean it won't go out due to a tree hitting a line or other unforeseen reasons.

As long as it is also out at work so I don't have to go in tomorrow that would be okay.

 

[bcla]

I'm home now and see rather mild wind. I think there's a pretty good chance that the power stays on.

I heard that power is being restored in other areas where they were shut down more to the north of PG&E's service area.

 

[bcla]

Well, it's 8 PM and I still have power. I saw my area right in one of the planned outage maps, although it could be depending on the conditions.

 

[disneychrista]

Well, it's 8 PM and I still have power. I saw my area right in one of the planned outage maps, although it could be depending on the conditions.

Took up to an extra 90 minutes for power to be shut off in my area last night. Was supposed to be midnight but in some areas it was 1:30 or after.

 

[Shellsbutt]

It's been pretty windy here today, Sacramento area, but we have SMUD, so no power outages thankfully. My parents aren't so lucky. They lost power around 1:30am, they live up in El Dorado County. It's a mess out there, everyone scrambling for ice, generators, etc.

 

[gillep]

Just got back from my appointment. The elevator at the building that I was visiting had a sign warning people that the electricity may shut off without any further warning and that they did not know when it would be restored if that happened, I took the stairs.

 

[bcla]

Just as a reference, Pacific Gas & Electric is the largest utility company in the US by the number of customers served and the total amount of revenue. However, it is a combined electricity and natural gas utility. When I was living in Silicon Valley, PG&E was my gas utility, but other utilities were all city owned.

It's not all that valuable in terms of market capitalization, but the bankruptcy and all the payouts/fines they've had over the years from fires and the San Bruno gas explosion have really affected their stock price.

 

[bcla]

It's been pretty windy here today, Sacramento area, but we have SMUD, so no power outages thankfully. My parents aren't so lucky. They lost power around 1:30am, they live up in El Dorado County. It's a mess out there, everyone scrambling for ice, generators, etc.

I think an issue is that SMUD and PG&E are on the same power grid and some of the shutdowns will inevitably affect non-PG&E customers because of how they connect to the same main transmission lines. I did hear that SMUD was working on possibly routing backup power for their own customers, but power networks can be really complicated.

 

[disneychrista]

Where does SMUD get their power? Our city power is generated by PGE but transmitted by the city. SO PGE could shut off the power to the city power transmission lines.

And when PGE talks about customers our city power is considered 1 customer even though it will likely effect have 500+ city power customers

 

[bcla]

Where does SMUD get their power? Our city power is generated by PGE but transmitted by the city. SO PGE could shut off the power to the city power transmission lines.

And when PGE talks about customers our city power is considered 1 customer even though it will likely effect have 500+ city power customers

PG&E likely helps bring power to any number of different utilities. Even if a municipal utility has specific sources they buy from, obviously it's really a commodity that might have to get to the customer through shared lines.

Apparently SMUD is building its own wind farm in Solano County. That's probably going to PG&E's transmission system where PG&E will then provide power in their part of the grid closer to the actual SMUD service area. It's actually quite inefficient to try and get this specific power source to that specific service area. It far easier to trade it as a commodity.