Norcal heat wave

[jboy210]

I can give a longer technical explanation if desired, but the basic answer is that it has stayed hot a long time and hasn't cooled off at night. And the extent to which the current temperature pattern is a deviation from local historical norms is greater in some place than others. If prior to the current event most transformers were being run near the boundary of their thermal envelopes, then the locations where the current temperature pattern is a bigger deviation from the past will have more transformer failures.

Cheers, Wayne

Thanks Wayne,

I saw on the news Saturday or so that PG&E was shipping transformers to various locations to pre-position them. So, PG&E must know they are a likely failure point and wanted to have replacements close to where they might be needed. Your explanation helps fill in the gaps on why this was a good move.

PS. Are these things filled with oil of some type? If so, I can't imagine working with hot oil in this heat.

 

[holeydonut]

Thanks Wayne,

I saw on the news Saturday or so that PG&E was shipping transformers to various locations to pre-position them. So, PG&E must know they are a likely failure point and wanted to have replacements close to where they might be needed. Your explanation helps fill in the gaps on why this was a good move.

PS. Are these things filled with oil of some type? If so, I can't imagine working with hot oil in this heat.

I think they're filled with beer. One of the streets a few hundred yards from me has lost power 5 times in the last 3 days; where crews will all show up and have a pow wow then leave. Then they all come back when the crack open another transformer keg.

They homeowners are so pissed haha, but the one guy with Enphase Encharge is feeling so damn happy lol.

 

[Electrph]

Since I'm an a-hole, I just like to feel good reading all the people on Social Media posting stuff like...

"how come nobody could have seen this issue sooner our leaders are trash."
or
"someone else is supposed to be helping us have power woe is meeeeee."
or
"how come there's no way for a home to avoid this?"

These folks all think it's someone else's job to give them grid resiliency. Like these folks actually trust PG&E and think PG&E or CASIO have their individual best interests in mind. Suckers.

unfortunately in my experience many people are much more reactive than proactive when it comes to SO many things in their life .. job security for many of us but its often discouraging to see

 

[jboy210]

I think they're filled with beer. One of the streets a few hundred yards from me has lost power 5 times in the last 3 days; where crews will all show up and have a pow wow then leave. Then they all come back when the crack open another transformer keg.

They homeowners are so pissed haha, but the one guy with Enphase Encharge is feeling so damn happy lol.

I am not sure I would want to trade places with a PG&E worker now. So I am cutting them and anyone else who has to work outside in this heat a lot of slack.

 

[Electrph]

I am not sure I would want to trade places with a PG&E worker now. So I am cutting them and anyone else who has to work outside in this heat a lot of slack.

there are a lot of people that work really hard / take pride in their work but just happen to or are stuck working for a rotten company at the corp level

 

[holeydonut]

I am not sure I would want to trade places with a PG&E worker now. So I am cutting them and anyone else who has to work outside in this heat a lot of slack.

Yeah, I think by and large PG&E's frontline folks are not the problem.

Unfortunately, a PG&E T-Man was the person that came to my house, disconnected the power, then threatened the Sunrun install crew since he had an axe to grind against Sunrun and residential PV+ESS. Then he left me without power for 10 hours in the middle of winter and tried to freeze out my 8 month old baby since our house temp just kept dropping since I had no power for the air handlers.

And one of his buddies in the blue truck echoed that Sunrun is a scam company that likely was jobbing me by selling me solar and Powerwalls that I didn't need. They were trying to "help me" and "I was learning a lesson."

PG&E indoctrinates their folks; and their folks buy into the PACs that buy/bribe influence with our politicians. So while maybe these foolios are not your normal PG&E worker... I still kind of don't care hah. They know what they signed up for.

 

[RKCRLR]

The Mosquito fire is about 15 miles north east of me. PG&E has filed an incident report:

https://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2022/09/090822.pdf

Pretty much says they don't think the fire has anything to do with their equipment other than "Our information reflects electrical activity occurred close in time to the report time of the fire."

 

[sunwarriors]

Doesn't charging from the grid affect the tax cerdit situation? Or VPP doesn't count anymore? I understand storm watch, but can folks start charging from grid at will now?

At least for the 1st 5 years?

 

[sunwarriors]

Since I'm an a-hole, I just like to feel good reading all the people on Social Media posting stuff like...

"how come nobody could have seen this issue sooner our leaders are trash."
or
"someone else is supposed to be helping us have power woe is meeeeee."
or
"how come there's no way for a home to avoid this?"

These folks all think it's someone else's job to give them grid resiliency. Like these folks actually trust PG&E and think PG&E or CASIO have their individual best interests in mind. Suckers.

You forgot:

"It's all the rich fat cats fault that the power grid is like this. They really need to make those people PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!"

 

[h2ofun]

Doesn't charging from the grid affect the tax cerdit situation? Or VPP doesn't count anymore? I understand storm watch, but can folks start charging from grid at will now?

At least for the 1st 5 years?

I see this no different than storm watch, emergency only. But even though I turned mine on, it does not work. Tesla sending to level 2 support

 

[RKCRLR]

I see this no different than storm watch, emergency only. But even though I turned mine on, it does not work. Tesla sending to level 2 support

I'll be interested in hearing what they say. Does your interconnection agreement allow charging from the grid? Anything larger than 10 KW (2 Powerwalls) is considered large NEM paired storage and falls under a different set of rules. It isn't clear to me whether or not they are allowed to grid charge.

 

[h2ofun]

I'll be interested in hearing what they say. Does your interconnection agreement allow charging from the grid? Anything larger than 10 KW (2 Powerwalls) is considered large NEM paired storage and falls under a different set of rules. It isn't clear to me whether or not they are allowed to grid charge.

Will see. They gave me the option. Guess time to find out details.

 

[SMAlset]

1:30p got call from PG&E to notify power in our area is out, again, as of 1:15p. No idea how long. Right now 2,676 affected. Won’t be surprised if more lose power as afternoon goes on. Verified on app as PWs had kicked in like they do, us unaware. ACs on and were turning up set temp even higher. Being only 1:30 expect this to be a bad day/night if they don’t restore in a few hours. One group of yesterday’s triple outage group lost power at 4:30p and according to KTVU this morning only got back on this morning.

Power out to people along 152 west of Gilroy. Atascadero has a few areas down south by San Luis Obisbo. Out at 1:19-1:20 with 6,295 affected. They have restore time by 7:15p today.

Well good news for those affected in MH area, the count of homes affected has dropped to 760. Checking our app, grid is back up here . Running AC off solar with some occasional PW. PWs at 60% today so far so in better shape than yesterday. Hopefully rest of area is back up soon.

 

[holeydonut]

You forgot:

"It's all the rich fat cats fault that the power grid is like this. They really need to make those people PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!"

Unfortunately your comments aren't really sarcasm... when I look at the narrative many people are spouting on FB and Nextdoor, a lot of folks (probably stoked by certain conservative media outlets) are blaming rich EV owners and rich solar customers for the power grid issues in California.

They're basically painting the picture that rich people who have Teslas are taking power from the grid at peak time. And if there were zero EVs, then the grid would have been fine. And the solar and folks are taxing the grid, and creating the problems. They're posting pictures of Teslas plugged in at 6pm and saying "look these a-holes ruined the food in my fridge!"

Their conclusion they are drawing is that the Democrats are forcing people to buy EVs by 2035, but are the ones ruining our lives. And of course, some then believe these "rich people Dems" aren't paying their fair share for the damage they're causing to those that do not have EVs or solar.

 

[BGbreeder]

I can give a longer technical explanation if desired, but the basic answer is that it has stayed hot a long time and hasn't cooled off at night. And the extent to which the current temperature pattern is a deviation from local historical norms is greater in some place than others. If prior to the current event most transformers were being run near the boundary of their thermal envelopes, then the locations where the current temperature pattern is a bigger deviation from the past will have more transformer failures.

Cheers, Wayne

Do you know what the load/outside temperature envelope is for a typical 15/25kW transformer? I.e. when does the derate start to kick in?

So, yes, I would be interested in more details, if you are up for it.

All the best,

BG

 

[jboy210]

Unfortunately your comments aren't really sarcasm... when I look at the narrative many people are spouting on FB and Nextdoor, a lot of folks (probably stoked by certain conservative media outlets) are blaming rich EV owners and rich solar customers for the power grid issues in California.

They're basically painting the picture that rich people who have Teslas are taking power from the grid at peak time. And if there were zero EVs, then the grid would have been fine. Basically the solar and EV crew is taxing the grid, and creating the problems. They're posting pictures of Teslas plugged in at 6pm and saying "look these a-holes ruined the food in my fridge!"

Their conclusion they are drawing is that the Democrats are forcing people to buy EVs by 2035, but are the ones ruining our lives. And of course, these rich people aren't paying their fair share for the damage they're causing to those that do not have EVs or solar.

The narrative I see is people saying "See, See, the grid is down and PG&E says it is due to EV charging. No way the state/country can move to EVs!!! We need more coal and Nuc plants!". That is, they bend the PG&E warning to not charge at high demand periods like early evening, to the grid can never handle EVs.

 

[holeydonut]

The narrative I see is people saying "See, See, the grid is down and PG&E says it is due to EV charging. No way the state/country can move to EVs!!! We need more coal and Nuc plants!". That is, they bend the PG&E warning to not charge at high demand periods like early evening, to the grid can never handle EVs.

Yeah, I can't really figure out why PG&E would call out EVs the way they did. PG&E actually wants more EVs... it shifts the future infrastructure spending away from lots of decentralized superfund hazmat brownfields (I mean gasoline stations and refineries). Instead we see more money going into the grid infrastructure and electrification that makes PG&E lots of $$$.

I mean we know why PG&E doesn't like residential solar, so I understand why PG&E would scapegoat solar customers who take power from the grid at 6pm.

But as it stands, there are now a ton of people saying EVs are terrible and those same people are still saying PG&E sucks. Not sure why PG&E would try to scapegoat EVs that way.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Yeah, I can't really figure out why PG&E would call out EVs the way they did. PG&E actually wants more EVs... it shifts the future infrastructure spending away from lots of decentralized superfund hazmat brownfields (I mean gasoline stations and refineries). Instead we see more money going into the grid infrastructure and electrification that makes PG&E lots of $$$.

I mean we know why PG&E doesn't like residential solar, so I understand why PG&E would scapegoat solar customers who take power from the grid at 6pm.

But as it stands, there are now a ton of people saying EVs are terrible and those same people are still saying PG&E sucks. Not sure why PG&E would try to scapegoat EVs that way.

IMHO, it is a reasonable thing to suggest avoiding as EV charging is a lot kW/kWH and usage that can be time shifted.

I have been avoiding charging my EV, but after 7 of 8 of the last days being a Flex Alert my EV was down to 10%/27mi and I charged it back up to 47%/128mi today. Most of that was from my solar as my Powerwalls didn't get the usual deep VPP discharge due to grid outage in my area and I had excess, but about 8 kWh came from a free ChargePoint charger (thanks Target) this morning while I was in a meeting and before I had that excess solar.

PG&E is a shrewd operator and I believe that they will use every opportunity that comes their way to promote any doom-and-gloom that they can blame on anyone else in order to get permission to spend more and thus profit more.

 

[RSpanner]

I am NOT disputing this>>

""Yeah, I can't really figure out why PG&E would call out EVs the way they did."

I just never heard about that and want more info.

 

[roblab]

unfortunately in my experience many people are much more reactive than proactive when it comes to SO many things in their life .. job security for many of us but its often discouraging to see

So, I'm proactive. I have a bunch of solar and three power walls, and when the power is out, as it is several times a month, sometimes for days, I don't care. But it's not being proactive. I'm old, and I bought Tesla stock way long time ago so I can now afford things like solar and power walls. I suspect many people saw the need approaching, but couldn't do anything about it, so now they're stuck. I will say that my wifey and I live simply, which also helps, and I've done things like only air conditioning ONE room (our bedroom) rather than the whole house, so our power usage is small. That said, we had helicopters floating all around this morning checking transformers all over our hill, and all I can do is feel sorry for all of my neighbors who have zero air conditioning. With global warming, you either have AC or you cook. There will be a lot of deaths from heat prostration this summer.