CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion

[sunwarriors]

Don't be fooled by PG&E's trick with the three cups and a pea. Undergrounding power lone costs are high, but sectionalizing the grid and installing synchrophasors (rapid shutdown arc fault devices) turn off segments before they can catch fire, and are much cheaper, and faster to implement. Look at SDG&E, which did it in ten years and for much less money that PG&E is proposing.

When Power Lines Break, a New Control System Keeps the Sparks From Flying

San Diego is rolling out synchrophasor tech for real‑time grid control

spectrum.ieee.org

I think undergrounding is a PR stunt. There are better, cheaper, solutions out there.

All the best,

BG

Probably true and as reported before, SDG&E has the most expensive power in the nation now. We haven't had any power shutoffs where I am at recently and you don't hear much about fire dangers after the 2007 Witch Creek fire. I think they spent a lot of $$ after that.

There are daily news reports now of how SDG&E is gouging consumers (which is true). For profit and utilities (required service) don't mix.

I agree that most rate payers are subsidizing rural areas and those folks in high risk fire danger areas aren't paying their fair share to build out the grid to their location for limited people. It's probably cheaper just to buy all of them solar/powerwalls and leave it at that.

 

[wwu123]

Does anyone know the path these cities took to gain independence from PG&E? Like why can't more cities pull this off... or even entire counties (probably the incorporated portions)?

I think it was discussed previously in this thread, maybe more than once. At least what I researched was that these municipalities had their own power plants and thus local distribution, long ago like up to 100 years back. Hence when the grids all started interconnecting, they were probably able to negotiate long-term agreements to connect at favorable rates. Fast forward to present, they can choose to import cheap power from out-of-state without paying onerous distribution fees to PG&E - some still generate some power (Santa Clara), some don't (Palo Alto)....

Other cities can't do it because they can't go back in time...

 

[STS-134]

I think it was discussed previously in this thread, maybe more than once. At least what I researched was that these municipalities had their own power plants and thus local distribution, long ago like up to 100 years back. Hence when the grids all started interconnecting, they were probably able to negotiate long-term agreements to connect at favorable rates. Fast forward to present, they can choose to import cheap power from out-of-state without paying onerous distribution fees to PG&E - some still generate some power (Santa Clara), some don't (Palo Alto)....

Other cities can't do it because they can't go back in time...

They can seize the electricity grid within the city limits via eminent domain but would be responsible for either generating power or procuring it for their customers somehow. At least that market seems to be somewhat regulated (via CAISO).

 

[Redhill_qik]

Don't be fooled by PG&E's trick with the three cups and a pea. Undergrounding power lone costs are high, but sectionalizing the grid and installing synchrophasors (rapid shutdown arc fault devices) turn off segments before they can catch fire, and are much cheaper, and faster to implement. Look at SDG&E, which did it in ten years and for much less money that PG&E is proposing.

When Power Lines Break, a New Control System Keeps the Sparks From Flying

San Diego is rolling out synchrophasor tech for real‑time grid control

spectrum.ieee.org

I think undergrounding is a PR stunt. There are better, cheaper, solutions out there.

All the best,

BG

SDG&E may have made better choices before, but it seems like they aren't now as they are spending $3.0 billion for 30,000 customers on fire hardening.

Engineer questions SDG&E's $3B project in East County San Diego

"Poles don't cause the fires,” said Bill Powers, an engineer with power system experience. “It's the wires that hit each other and touch tree limbs."

www.cbs8.com

 

[holeydonut]

SDG&E may have made better choices before, but it seems like they aren't now as they are spending $3.0 billion for 30,000 customers on fire hardening.

Engineer questions SDG&E's $3B project in East County San Diego

"Poles don't cause the fires,” said Bill Powers, an engineer with power system experience. “It's the wires that hit each other and touch tree limbs."

www.cbs8.com

That's why I think it's fair that if a home is in a fire zone it should pay $80,000. They're saving $20,000. It's a more fair solution than asking a poor person to pay for a rich person's underground power lines right?

I think the people who supported the IOU's NEM 3.0 proposal (and the CPUC PD) should be in favor of this. Since they all want fair share with no cost shift to poor people.

 

[STS-134]

That's why I think it's fair that if a home is in a fire zone it should pay $80,000. They're saving $20,000. It's a more fair solution than asking a poor person to pay for a rich person's underground power lines right?

The problem is that the IOUs never implement anything that way. They should put a "rural high fire zone surcharge" on people's bills if they live in such an area. The fewer customers per unit distance of electricity lines in the area, the higher the surcharge.

 

[Zorg]

Probably true and as reported before, SDG&E has the most expensive power in the nation now. We haven't had any power shutoffs where I am at recently and you don't hear much about fire dangers after the 2007 Witch Creek fire. I think they spent a lot of $$ after that.

There are daily news reports now of how SDG&E is gouging consumers (which is true). For profit and utilities (required service) don't mix.

I agree that most rate payers are subsidizing rural areas and those folks in high risk fire danger areas aren't paying their fair share to build out the grid to their location for limited people. It's probably cheaper just to buy all of them solar/powerwalls and leave it at that.

The fact that they had decades to bury the lines but did nothing speaks to the ineptitude.

 

[RKCRLR]

I live in a rural area. While I agree that it may be fair to pass some costs on for rural access, I'd like to point out that we already pay significant additional costs.
We have a special wildfire assessment added to our taxes.
Farmers insurance cancelled my fire insurance and have to get insurance through the FAIR plan (which is anything but fair) which tripled my insurance.

A major contributor to the wildfires is the IOU's lack of maintenance on their infrastructure which they were supposed to be doing. If they had been performing the maintenance like they were supposed to my fire insurance would be significantly lower due to fewer fires.
On one hand holding the IOU's responsible for the fires is like having someone dump gasoline in a room and then holding the person who accidentally ignites it responsible for the explosion. But if they had performed the clearing and maintenance they were supposed to do there would be far fewer fires. I tend to think burying the distribution lines underground is overkill.

PG&E has been doing a LOT of clearing around me. I probably have ten years of firewood now. They said they are now taking a different approach. Previously, they would come out every few years and trim trees that were an immediate threat. Now they are trimming/clearing with a 10-20 year outlook. They took out some of my trees that would take a pretty wild imagination of being a threat. And they have a pretty elaborate process.

First, a crew comes out and does an evaluation of which trees are threats.
Then a different crew comes out to determine if a tree gets trimmed or cut.
Then another crew comes out to do a canopy evaluation. Not exactly sure what that is but they had to return several times because their GPS wasn't working.
Then they get around to cutting. I wasn't wild about some of the things they did.
I think they could make the whole process more efficient.

When you open the canopy and disturb dirt, weeds and brush will grow (and they disturbed a lot of dirt). Now it will be my responsibility to control the weeds and brush.
They cut a lot of live oaks. Live oak stumps will grow back as brush unless treated. They would only treat certain areas so now there will be a lot of brush unless I manage it.
I had selectively cleared some sloped areas along my driveway of non-native species and strategically left some native brush for erosion control. They wiped out a lot of that brush during their clearing operations and now I may have some erosion problems.

But the bottom line is I'm glad they are doing this. But be prepared for bigger bills, I'm sure this is expensive. They should have been doing preventative maintenance all along to keep the costs manageable.

 

[Southpasfan]

I live in a rural area. While I agree that it may be fair to pass some costs on for rural access, I'd like to point out that we already pay significant additional costs.
We have a special wildfire assessment added to our taxes.
Farmers insurance cancelled my fire insurance and have to get insurance through the FAIR plan (which is anything but fair) which tripled my insurance.

A major contributor to the wildfires is the IOU's lack of maintenance on their infrastructure which they were supposed to be doing. If they had been performing the maintenance like they were supposed to my fire insurance would be significantly lower due to fewer fires.
On one hand holding the IOU's responsible for the fires is like having someone dump gasoline in a room and then holding the person who accidentally ignites it responsible for the explosion. But if they had performed the clearing and maintenance they were supposed to do there would be far fewer fires. I tend to think burying the distribution lines underground is overkill.

PG&E has been doing a LOT of clearing around me. I probably have ten years of firewood now. They said they are now taking a different approach. Previously, they would come out every few years and trim trees that were an immediate threat. Now they are trimming/clearing with a 10-20 year outlook. They took out some of my trees that would take a pretty wild imagination of being a threat. And they have a pretty elaborate process.

First, a crew comes out and does an evaluation of which trees are threats.
Then a different crew comes out to determine if a tree gets trimmed or cut.
Then another crew comes out to do a canopy evaluation. Not exactly sure what that is but they had to return several times because their GPS wasn't working.
Then they get around to cutting. I wasn't wild about some of the things they did.
I think they could make the whole process more efficient.

When you open the canopy and disturb dirt, weeds and brush will grow (and they disturbed a lot of dirt). Now it will be my responsibility to control the weeds and brush.
They cut a lot of live oaks. Live oak stumps will grow back as brush unless treated. They would only treat certain areas so now there will be a lot of brush unless I manage it.
I had selectively cleared some sloped areas along my driveway of non-native species and strategically left some native brush for erosion control. They wiped out a lot of that brush during their clearing operations and now I may have some erosion problems.

But the bottom line is I'm glad they are doing this. But be prepared for bigger bills, I'm sure this is expensive. They should have been doing preventative maintenance all along to keep the costs manageable.

Its obviously technical.

But I mean, we/you can't continue to pay for "the grid" through volumetric pricing of electricity.

Its a dead end street, and what this whole NEM 3.0 argument shows is that we are relatively near the dead end. I think the consumers are going to "win" this battle, and win we should. Rooftop solar is simply too good a solution and its available now and its being implemented now.

RK's post shows another aspect, if we had anyone who lived in a remote area pay the billion dollars a mile for whatever freeway runs to it the freeways would never happen, its exactly the same situation with electricity.

Rooftop solar is conceptually the best form of conservation, probably I have seen since its not only conserving energy its replacing dirty energy with clean energy.

But as long as the volumetric pricing goes on, well, it will be battle after battle.

 

[holeydonut]

Lol ok, so I'm back on the bandwagon that "fair share" is a stupid idea. Who came up with this "fair share" thing anyway? Fair Share sucks. PG&E sucks.

Too bad the IOU's proposal for NEM 3.0 seems ok cherry picking how they think a "fair share" doctrine should be applied to only California homes with rooftop solar without applying the same doctrine across all rate payers.

 

[RKCRLR]

Its obviously technical.

But I mean, we/you can't continue to pay for "the grid" through volumetric pricing of electricity.

Its a dead end street, and what this whole NEM 3.0 argument shows is that we are relatively near the dead end. I think the consumers are going to "win" this battle, and win we should. Rooftop solar is simply too good a solution and its available now and its being implemented now.

RK's post shows another aspect, if we had anyone who lived in a remote area pay the billion dollars a mile for whatever freeway runs to it the freeways would never happen, its exactly the same situation with electricity.

Rooftop solar is conceptually the best form of conservation, probably I have seen since its not only conserving energy its replacing dirty energy with clean energy.

But as long as the volumetric pricing goes on, well, it will be battle after battle.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that when I built my house I had to pay for the installation of the power poles, not PG&E, and it WASN'T cheap. Once I paid for them the condition was I turn them over to PG&E in exchange for service and maintenance.

Another thing that frosted me was that even though I had a deeded utility easement PG&E made me get signed forms from my neighbors that PG&E would be allowed to trim trees (isn't that what the easement is for?). I had to bribe one neighbor to sign the form.

 

[Redhill_qik]

With all of the talk about rural costs, I went to look up the cost for New Hampshire as this is pretty rural state and the Eversource Residential R rate has the following:

• Monthly fixed - $13.891
• Distribution & Transmission - $0.09226/kWh (no TOU, no Tiers)
• Generation - $0.10669/kWh (no TOU, no Tiers)
• Total = $0.19895/kWh

NH is/was a pretty green (foliage cover) state, so maybe the risk of lines causing a wildfire isn't as high as it is here in California, but they get by with a lot lower costs. Maybe it is the fixed cost number, PG&E had 5.4m electric customers in 2017 (from their overview page) at $14/month that would be $70M/month or $840M/year. If it was higher like the Modesto (MID) fixed rate of $20/month that would be $108M/month or $1,296M/year.

 

[BGbreeder]

Just to point out that a number of the transmission lines that have caused major fires, e.g. Paradise, are actually serving urban customers by taking hydropower to cities...

It is not strictly urban vs rural...

All the best,

BG

 

[BGbreeder]

With all of the talk about rural costs, I went to look up the cost for New Hampshire as this is pretty rural state and the Eversource Residential R rate has the following:

• Monthly fixed - $13.891
• Distribution & Transmission - $0.09226/kWh (no TOU, no Tiers)
• Generation - $0.10669/kWh (no TOU, no Tiers)
• Total = $0.19895/kWh

NH is/was a pretty green (foliage cover) state, so maybe the risk of lines causing a wildfire isn't as high as it is here in California, but they get by with a lot lower costs. Maybe it is the fixed cost number, PG&E had 5.4m electric customers in 2017 (from their overview page) at $14/month that would be $70M/month or $840M/year. If it was higher like the Modesto (MID) fixed rate of $20/month that would be $108M/month or $1,296M/year.

Definitely fewer fires, but a lot more snow and ice dropping limbs on power lines... probably necessitating wider clearance around the wires.

 

[Zorg]

Truckee, CA (in the Sierra) charges $15-20 a month in fixed fees and 15c a KWh. They buy their electricity from Nevada. At 30c a KWh, you'd think that PG&E has enough money to bury their lines/maintain their overhead lines.

 

[EVDRVN]

Truckee, CA (in the Sierra) charges $15-20 a month in fixed fees and 15c a KWh. They buy their electricity from Nevada. At 30c a KWh, you'd think that PG&E has enough money to bury their lines/maintain their overhead lines.

I wish it were $.30 on PGE

 

[getakey]

I wish it were $.30 on PGE

no kidding. My Peak rate is $.60 and Partial is around $.35

 

[EVDRVN]

no kidding. My Peak rate is $.60 and Partial is around $.35

CRIMINAL! It really is.

 

[charlesj]

They can seize the electricity grid within the city limits via eminent domain but would be responsible for either generating power or procuring it for their customers somehow. At least that market seems to be somewhat regulated (via CAISO).

And maintain the electric grid withing the city limits?

 

[holeydonut]

Haha CPUC just approved another electricity rate increase… second increase for 2022.

Fair. MF-ing Share.

PG&E monthly bills are set to jump again this year, jolting customers

PG&E monthly bills are set to jump again, state officials decided Thursday, a decision that extends a string of higher costs for the utility’s electricity and gas customers.

www.mercurynews.com

Quote:

“This is completely outrageous,” said Mark Toney, executive director for The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, a consumer group. “When you add this to the increase at the beginning of the year, this amounts to a 20% increase so far in 2022.”

hope y’all got solar and NEM haha.