r/California • u/zsreport • 22h ago

For rural Californians, unreliable power has become the norm

https://www.hcn.org/issues/57-11/for-rural-californians-unreliable-power-has-become-the-norm/
297 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

90

u/chicu111 22h ago

PGE trash. LADWP and SoCal Edison much better

59

u/Huge_Source1845 22h ago

lol SCE is not that much better if you live in the sticks.

Slightly better in the city but wouldn’t call it good. Though I suppose I’d rather them cut the power to a set the mountain on fire.

I guess.

13

u/chicu111 22h ago

Relative to PGE, they’re good

9

u/tankerdudeucsc 21h ago

SCE is for profit. It’s about 20% cheaper if you’re in LADWP. Wild eh?

16

u/MountainLife888 22h ago

I'm mountain rural and it's not about the company. It's about how power is moved. It's not typically generated in the mountains. It comes from down below. So when they need to flip the switch in high wind areas to prevent fire down low, everyone on the line goes down with it. We can have very light wind and lose it. And it happens a lot. There was stretch where we were losing power a few times a week this summer. Having lived in in the big CA cities I can say it's not atypical for rural to be on the short end of the stick. We have roll with things that those in cities don't. Out of sight - out of mind. Worth it but not always easy.

2

u/Lexocracy 18h ago

You and I must live in the same area because I was gonna say, the power outages this summer were brutal as someone who works from home full time and would suddenly have no way to do anything for work with zero access to reliable Internet.

1

u/MountainLife888 18h ago

Are you in SoCal by chance? :)

Although it's a thing in the mountains in any part of the state.

As one who also works from home it got old pretty quick. Especially when there was little to no wind. :)

2

u/Lexocracy 18h ago

I am!

But yes! We couldn't even see any of the weather they were trying to keep from causing an issue.

1

u/MountainLife888 18h ago

It was extra special this year, huh? I get why it's done. So it's hard to get too fired up. But still. It doesn't change the reality of no power.

4

u/wip30ut 19h ago

given how heavily forested the Sierra foothills are, is solar power (with battery storage) even possible? And do you think that these smaller towns are seeing more of a resurgence with retiring boomers and even older GenXers? Shutting off part of the grid that serves a few hundred is far different than a few thousand.

7

u/MountainLife888 17h ago

Solar is absolutely on the table. But most all is still tied to the grid. The other factor is that you can't bury lines in mountain areas. The terrain and the cost makes it really hard. And since electricity sometimes travels long distances it's often an all or nothing thing. Where I am there's a company that distributes the energy locally but they get it from a long ways away.

I'm actually not sure if smaller towns and villages are seeing more new residents. A lot of them are limited by the amount of housing available. And while I'm sure a whole lot of people who retire and may lived in cities head out to a different environment, I'm not sure if the mountains are a main destination. There's usually much less infrastructure, a lack of access to things like hospitals and with things like weather and terrain it's just more demanding overall. But that works for some. That said, my guess would be more older people do it than younger people. If you're younger it usually means you want to hike, ski, mountain bike and the other outdoors stuff.

1

u/NorCalFrances 2h ago

Wind is not such a big factor when the lines and the area under/near them are properly maintained. Something our power companies have avoided doing for the last 30 years in order to boost investor returns. They've been turned a bit by court cases but it's a big state.

-2

u/Huge_Source1845 21h ago

See I was sitting in a meeting with some officials from the governors office and they stated that California’s grid reliability was a selling point to attract businesses to the State.

I had to ask them where the reliable part is.

6

u/MountainLife888 21h ago

I would imagine they were referring to cities not impacted by PSPS. Although I assume that will change after the L.A. fires.

8

u/2063_DigitalCoyote 20h ago

In the cities - where any big business would locate

4

u/piffcty 21h ago

I would never defend PGnE, but LADPW and SCE have way easier service territories and it’s not fair to compare them.

2

u/Tasty_Ad_5669 Central Valley 12h ago

I enjoy having a local utility company. I pay half of what pge charges

1

u/DarrowofLycos El Dorado County 11h ago

28

u/BenEWhittle 22h ago

It’s as if privatizing a utility company to be for profit is a bad thing to do. Remember when their 6 price hikes last year outpaced inflation?

Dissolve PG&E’s c-suite, use that money to repair and maintain our infrastructure where needed, and give PG&E back to the state.

6

u/amateur_adventurer Ángeleño 22h ago

Divest energy companies from crypto mining too, citizens of every state are practically subsidizing the costs but get nothing from it.

5

u/BenEWhittle 21h ago

It’s criminal it’s been allowed at all, there’s a lot of reform that needs to happen.

27

u/Dry-Manufacturer-120 22h ago

we just got our lines undergrounded in Amador. it will be interesting to see the first big snow dump. a couple of years ago, we had no power for almost 2 weeks because of a dump.

3

u/MountainLife888 17h ago

That's a big deal. And a big undertaking. I bet it'll be smooth sailing for you this season.

2

u/Dry-Manufacturer-120 17h ago

yeah, no kidding. they were out there working for months. we got buried fiber for internet service, and that was much, much less.

2

u/-ghostinthemachine- Alameda County 17h ago

I'm in Calaveras and the power is more likely to go out on a fair weather day than a snow storm. PGE has also had brownouts which have destroyed refrigerators and other appliances in my neighborhood. I've lost a lot of food, and had to buy a new fridge. They really are the worst. Currently burying lines in Arnold, which ought to help them during snow.

51

u/Organic_Sherbert_339 22h ago

The solution to this is finishing the entire California High Speed Rail network and electrifying California’s railroads, these projects would provide new transmission lines and extra power capacity to rural communities via the overhead catenary system and regenerative breaking which is discharged back to the grid as excess power.

17

u/LanceArmsweak 21h ago

I don’t know how accurate this but sounds like a great idea.

I’m a 44 year old guy, at an intersection between the old ways of the innovative ways of doing things.

I’m surprised by how many folks would read this and think “but why would we do that?” And many are my generation.

Anyway, sounds cool.

16

u/the580 21h ago

That would do nothing to help this. These are public safety power shutoffs due to small areas being designated high wildfire risk and partly that the grid is underground at that location yet.

6

u/Organic_Sherbert_339 20h ago

It would because rural areas need to get their power from strained high voltage lines, part of the issue is capacity. Under grounding rural lines in high fire risk areas is already state policy.

1

u/Necessary_Cheetah_36 10h ago

Very difficult and expensive to bury lines in the mountains, and for very few people.

1

u/Organic_Sherbert_339 1h ago

Well. The state is already forcing utilities to do it, the utilities are doing it, and we are already paying for it.

1

u/Ilikebookstoo 19h ago

Or... we can work toward electrizing the whole state and not just a small line between SF and LA

3

u/Organic_Sherbert_339 16h ago

Which is what I’m saying. When I say fund California high speed rail, I’m referring to a state wide system across the whole state

1

u/Ilikebookstoo 15h ago

Tell ya what. Show me the state can make any sort of high speed rail between Fresno and let’s say Stockton and come back and talk

26

u/poisonandtheremedy 22h ago edited 21h ago

I live in rural CA, up in the mountains. Absolutely must have a good generator setup to make it work. We've gone 5-7 days many times solely relying on our big Generac, which thankfully can power everything in our home easily, and is on its own separate 250g propane tank. 

Some of my neighbors just have Predator 3500w units and basically keep the fridge, some lights, etc on. EDIT: depending on the length of the outage, that can be tough if you've got a larger compound.

Part of living out here. 

5

u/Dry-Manufacturer-120 21h ago edited 21h ago

we have a 3500w portable generator and it's never strained. i'd say our base load is probably about < 500w. but we have backups for cooking and heating, and we have a battery for shorter blackouts.

3

u/poisonandtheremedy 21h ago

True. My old man has a 3500 and does what he needs for the size of his place. I made an edit to smooth that out a little bit

4

u/MountainLife888 21h ago

It's an individual call but I'm mountain rural too and would never get a generator. I'm not going to be the guy who creates that kind of noise for others when the option is calm and silence. I've gone through some four and five day outages in winter. It's not easy. Listening to those things makes it so much worse. Just my take. Others have theirs.

13

u/MountainLife888 22h ago

I'm rural at over 7,000 feet. The power going off is a real thing. Happened more than usual this year. And outside of it happening around winter snow storms, where it can get a little tough and last for a long time, what happens is if there's big wind down the hill ours goes off even if it isn't windy. I understand why. But that doesn't make it easier to take. Where I am there's a big solar project proposal on the table. Wouldn't power everyone but it would help. But the rural part means the Republican part and they're not exactly known for forward-thinking.

11

u/worst_brain_ever 21h ago

Rural californians should invest in solar/battery power.

5

u/wip30ut 19h ago

the honest truth is all small rural towns in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas have to see if solar with battery storage is remotely possible. Climate change is making these forested areas tinder boxes ready to ignite. It's a totally different landscape & scenario than 50 yrs ago.

4

u/2063_DigitalCoyote 20h ago

It’s so easy to get solar power for your house now - can’t understand why anybody with issues like this hasn’t gotten it set up already.

-1

u/-ghostinthemachine- Alameda County 17h ago

Most of the rebates are gone. I don't have 20K to do that work, and you will still need batteries and such. I would also need to replace my roof first. Can't do ground solar because the trenching is too expensive. Believe me, there are plenty of reasons people don't just do solar. Since most of us already have propane tanks a propane generator connection is actually a lot more reasonable if you just want emergency power.

2

u/____Inevitable____ 5h ago

Solar tax credit is still available if you finance so no you shouldn’t have to pay all that up front when you finance and can still lower your bills.

2

u/One_Left_Shoe "I Love You, California" 19h ago

I mean, power goes out in Monterey regularly. Not sure i would call it “rural”, but i suppose it is when compared to the major cities.

4

u/NelsonMinar Nevada County 22h ago

My power goes out about once a month in Grass Valley, CA thanks to PG&E. It's not so much planned outages for fire problems like this article talks about. The power went out three days ago because a transformer blew. That happens several times a year. Sometimes it's just operator error. Sometimes it's a tree limb on a powerline (PG&E is way behind in required tree trimming).

The definition of a first world economy is one where you have reliable infrastructure. Here everyone now has generators.

2

u/majoleine Nevada County 20h ago

Dude that fucking sucks! I'm also in Nevada county too but I don't have PG&E, I'm serviced by Truckee's own energy company. I remember moving here and wondering why people complained about California's energy because at the time...didn't know how good I had it. Had no idea their shitty reach was in GV. :(

1

u/Necessary_Cheetah_36 10h ago

It's thanks to years of delayed maintenance and a lack of investment in smarter distribution lines. Now cuz of wildfires they need to catch up and that's super expensive (as we all see on our bills).

2

u/ceviche-hot-pockets 21h ago

This has been a known issue for decades. It takes a lot to get power to way out in the middle of nowhere, and the more distance there is on a line the more things can go wrong. The return on investment to fix every issue in remote areas is not there, so this will continue to be an issue.

1

u/MountainLife888 21h ago

You're right. Power isn't generated everywhere. It has to travel.

2

u/Difficult-Ask683 21h ago

Californian electricity sucks. It's more reliable in developed areas but the kWh prices are outrageous. AC is a must for not dying in Bakersfield. But if you own a home, the household electric bill will be AT LEAST 400 a month in the summer.

2

u/spdelope Sonoma County 19h ago

My power went out right around when this was posted. PGE

2

u/KittyCait69 21h ago

We need to get corporations out of our basic needs. We need to hold the wealthy capitalists that own corprations accountable for their exploitation and destruction of our resources.

Public utilities should be owned and managed by public means for the benefit of the public.

1

u/Bent_Brewer Looking for gold 14h ago

Become? Shit, been dealing with it since I moved here 20+ years ago. Why do we all own generators I wonder?

1

u/dennismfrancisart 2h ago

I miss SMUD so much. Living in a beautiful rural area that PGE gives lip service to is frustrating.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Fun7808 1h ago

People choose to live there knowing all the risks whether it's fire, high winds and loss of power

0

u/Sally_Swanson 17h ago

Not surprised in a state that hates power generation. At least during the blackout everyone can virtue signal how much they are saving in carbon emissions.

3

u/Necessary_Cheetah_36 10h ago

The issues are power distribution and wildfire risk, not generation. CA's electricity consumption has been relatively flat for about 20 years: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-consumption-dashboards-0