NorCal PG&E blackouts

[ohmman]

@ohmman I'm comcast too. How long did Comcast stay up after the outage? Curious if Comcast employs battery backup and if so at what level (i.e. time duration).

They went out as soon as the power did. And while our power was restored last night at 10pm, Comcast is still out. I just got off of the phone with them and they said it'll be tomorrow before it's operational again. When I asked what needed to be done, I received a very long pause followed by "um, wiring." Sounds legit!

 

[SoundDaTrumpet]

I'm on SCE but they send me emails, LOTS OF EMAILS about the planned power outages. From what I can tell they have 3 states.

1) No chance of turning off power
2) Warning state - power might turn off
3) Power off

I feel like I get an email whenever there is a transition of states.

This is for a place in Mammoth Lakes. That has been the most helpful/annoying way to understand when power shut-offs will happen.

Does PG&E have something similar?

Yes. Having called PG&E numerous time this past year, they try to gather contact information at the start of the phone call for 'some reason' (at the time). Silly how my wife got emailed and I didn't. Likely because I clicked "unsubscribed" by mistake on one of their perceived marketing emails. My mistake.

 

[Late2theGame]

@ohmman How long did Comcast stay up after the outage? Curious if Comcast employs battery backup and if so at what level (i.e. time duration).

Maybe I should stock a pair 12ga extension cords to share power with my next door neighbors. The stickler-side of my won't let them use anything less.

The power transfer concept is neat... should send that suggestion over to Tesla. My regularly used Tesla-brand charge station is not connected as a critical load for the opposite case... Tesla has no control over preventing depleting PW by mistake (i.e. should give house priority over powering car that has 'enough' charge).

In my location Comcast was up for about 6 hours after blackout and it took them 2-3 hours to get back up after power returned.

Yes, automating the car charging “on supply” would be very sweet.

 

[Late2theGame]

I'm on SCE but they send me emails, LOTS OF EMAILS about the planned power outages. From what I can tell they have 3 states.

1) No chance of turning off power
2) Warning state - power might turn off
3) Power off

I feel like I get an email whenever there is a transition of states.

This is for a place in Mammoth Lakes. That has been the most helpful/annoying way to understand when power shut-offs will happen.

Does PG&E have something similar?

Yes, we had signed up for their alerts by email and text. I got the last text saying they were cutting of power and then it took about 9-10 hours before they finally did. I appreciate that they did not over communicate but an additional text within ~30 min of actual shutdown would have been much more helpful. Yes, the situation was fluid but once they know for sure they cut power they should say so. Might be beyond their capability because of granularity of shutoffs?

 

[JPP]

I was blacked out at 10 pm or so Wednesday. Took me a bit to connect up my 7000 W dual fuel generator (...kind of a kluge backfeed plus extension cords). Comcast went down about 2 hours later. Power came back at 6:00 pm Thursday. Comcast came back up an hour later with TV and phone, but internet did not work. Had to power cycle their gateway to get a new/proper lease.

Wish I had Powerwalls, but $$ issues plus new PG&E rates make it only useful for outages, not arbitrage.

 

[EV-by-the-Sea]

Had the pleasure of my powerwall working for about 6 hours after the grid was turned off only to have it fail completely out of the blue (with 70% remaining charge). Per a call with Tesla support, they said a large load knocked the system offline, and the only thing I could correlate it with was the (gas) furnace turning on, but it shouldn't draw that much current. Unfortunately I couldn't get power restarted in the house once the grid was down, so that was incredibly frustrating. Tried to get back in touch with support but after being placed on hold for over an hour gave up. System never came back online until the grid returned. Needless to say, my faith in the system is a little shaken.

 

[Merrill]

Had the pleasure of my powerwall working for about 6 hours after the grid was turned off only to have it fail completely out of the blue (with 70% remaining charge). Per a call with Tesla support, they said a large load knocked the system offline, and the only thing I could correlate it with was the (gas) furnace turning on, but it shouldn't draw that much current. Unfortunately I couldn't get power restarted in the house once the grid was down, so that was incredibly frustrating. Tried to get back in touch with support but after being placed on hold for over an hour gave up. System never came back online until the grid returned. Needless to say, my faith in the system is a little shaken.

I would be interested in knowing what happened, could you post that when you find out, would be very frustrated as well.

 

[troptop]

Had the pleasure of my powerwall working for about 6 hours after the grid was turned off only to have it fail completely out of the blue (with 70% remaining charge). Per a call with Tesla support, they said a large load knocked the system offline, and the only thing I could correlate it with was the (gas) furnace turning on, but it shouldn't draw that much current. Unfortunately I couldn't get power restarted in the house once the grid was down, so that was incredibly frustrating. Tried to get back in touch with support but after being placed on hold for over an hour gave up. System never came back online until the grid returned. Needless to say, my faith in the system is a little shaken.

I was playing around with my ACs, trying to run them from batteries doing my best not to overload them. Well most times I did overload the system and the power in the house was cut for a split second and then everything was working fine again. I was running off grid.

 

[Big Dog]

Had the pleasure of my powerwall working for about 6 hours after the grid was turned off only to have it fail completely out of the blue (with 70% remaining charge). Per a call with Tesla support, they said a large load knocked the system offline, and the only thing I could correlate it with was the (gas) furnace turning on, but it shouldn't draw that much current. Unfortunately I couldn't get power restarted in the house once the grid was down, so that was incredibly frustrating. Tried to get back in touch with support but after being placed on hold for over an hour gave up. System never came back online until the grid returned. Needless to say, my faith in the system is a little shaken.

That's ridiculous. A furnace fan does not draw like the ac compressor. Looking forward to hear if you figure out the culprit.

 

[ohmman]

Had the pleasure of my powerwall working for about 6 hours after the grid was turned off only to have it fail completely out of the blue (with 70% remaining charge). Per a call with Tesla support, they said a large load knocked the system offline, and the only thing I could correlate it with was the (gas) furnace turning on, but it shouldn't draw that much current. Unfortunately I couldn't get power restarted in the house once the grid was down, so that was incredibly frustrating. Tried to get back in touch with support but after being placed on hold for over an hour gave up. System never came back online until the grid returned. Needless to say, my faith in the system is a little shaken.

I once tried to run our AC on backup power. It wasn't during this recent outage, it was another shorter unplanned outage. I know the Powerwalls can run the AC, but kicking it on was too much, and I had a similar outcome to what you describe. They were entirely offline, but there was no obvious breaker flipped. I waited for at least 15 minutes, and nothing seemed to be restarting. I turned every breaker and switch off, including the DC disconnect from my inverter, the transfer switch breakers, the Powerwall power switches, etc. Then, I turned everything back on and waited and it came back up within 5 minutes. What I did was probably overkill, but I bet there's some kind of reset procedure that would work in this case. Odd for both of us that it didn't come back on on its own.

 

[iPlug]

For those above where furnace or AC startup load might have taken down the system, how many Powerwalls do you have?

One Powerwall is 7kW peak / 5kW continuous, so if running the whole house on one Powerwall, HVAC load kicking in might take the unit down, but two Powerwalls at 14kW peak start load should be able to handle this in most homes.

 

[ohmman]

For those above where furnace or AC startup load might have taken down the system, how many Powerwalls do you have?

I have two.

 

[EV-by-the-Sea]

For those above where furnace or AC startup load might have taken down the system, how many Powerwalls do you have?

One Powerwall is 7kW peak / 5kW continuous, so if running the whole house on one Powerwall, HVAC load kicking in might take the unit down, but two Powerwalls at 14kW peak start load should be able to handle this in most homes.

One powerwall. The house was only consuming .2kw before the heater kicked on. I sent a photo to powerwall support and they were going to get back to me to see if it's compatible with a soft start kit?

 

[power.saver]

Post the photo here... we'll get back to you sooner than they will

 

[cwerdna]

In my location Comcast was up for about 6 hours after blackout.

For me, my power went out on Wednesday at 11:58 pm. I knew I was in an affected area per PG&E's maps and address lookup tool. Comcast internet access went out at 12:45 am. I confirmed by visiting my cable modem's status page (http://192.168.100.1/).

At that point, I just turned off power to the UPSes running my cable modem and wireless access point. I checked the Xfinity app and it listed an unplanned outage for me also affecting 2500+ customers. It was still like that when I left for work in the morning (no power and no Comrap).

Once the power went out, I went to work on unwinding and untangling extension cords and getting my 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter hooked up to my Bolt (had tested it before and it could start and run my fridge). I kept that going all night until I went to work and had to leave. I powered my fridge, laptop, some lights and my security camera NVR system. When I was awake, I had to tether my laptop to a cell phone to surf the net.

For the Bolt, the car must be left in ready mode otherwise the 12 volt will go flat. To workaround a stupid 1 hour timeout where the car shuts itself off if left in park for an hour, I had keep it neutral and exit from the passenger side. Basically, enter from passenger side. Use a rod or stick to push the brake pedal and shift to neutral. Exit from passenger side. That's easier the than doing it from the driver's side and having to climb over to exit from the passenger side.

My power came back around 3 pm on Thursday, which is much earlier than I expected. I expected to be w/o power until at least sometime Friday.

Fortunately, my work (w/free L2 charging) wasn't affected and areas just a few miles away from home also weren't affected. There are 2 paid DC FCs within 7 miles of home (if I needed to use them) and I'm pretty sure they weren't in affected areas.

 

[troptop]

For those above where furnace or AC startup load might have taken down the system, how many Powerwalls do you have?.

Also two. One AC unit's LRA is 145A, I put a surestart on it to reduce by 60-70% or so but its still too much for two powerwalls. However, two powerwalls and solar producing (was making 7kW when I tried, so dont know the lowerst limit yet) at the same time is enough to start the AC unit .

 

[ohmman]

Also two. One AC unit's LRA is 145A, I put a surestart on it to reduce by 60-70% or so but its still too much for two powerwalls. However, two powerwalls and solar producing (was making 7kW when I tried, so dont know the lowerst limit yet) at the same time is enough to start the AC unit .

I'm likely converting to mini-splits in the house for efficiency and zone control. If I do, it should solve this problem for me pretty quickly since I can cycle them on only in the rooms needed.

 

[nwdiver]

I'm likely converting to mini-splits in the house for efficiency and zone control. If I do, it should solve this problem for me pretty quickly since I can cycle them on only in the rooms needed.

I LUV my mini-splits. I think I would rank them on par with PV possibly even a bit higher if you DIY in terms of bang for your buck for energy conservation. When I'm running off-grid I don't even notice them cycling but I do notice when the compressor in my fridge kicks on...

 

[jjrandorin]

I LUV my mini-splits. I think I would rank them on par with PV possibly even a bit higher if you DIY in terms of bang for your buck for energy conservation. When I'm running off-grid I don't even notice them cycling but I do notice when the compressor in my fridge kicks on...

I am very new to this. Have had leased solar city system on my house since 2015 and it has been completely problem free. Recently decided to get 2 powerwalls. Asked for powerwalls to be whole house, and backup my AC units (2), which I was told tesla has approved. Solar system is 8.745kW. Service is 200 amp.

Reading the thread, it sounds like the initial draw from my AC units might cause an issue. I understand I would not want to run Ac constantly in an outage, but wanted the ability to run it for 30 minutes or so if needed because it gets hot where I am, in inland southern california.

What is a mini split, if it can be explained easily, and where should I be reading up on what this is to determine if I need it?

 

[nwdiver]

What is a mini split, if it can be explained easily, and where should I be reading up on what this is to determine if I need it?

It's basically ductless AC. BY FAR the biggest advantage is that it's VFD driven so there is no starting current. Instead of starting/stopping like conventional HVAC the compressor speeds up and slows down. You can also cool one room at a time. I have a 2 ton LG with 3 indoor units. If I'm in my living room I just use the 12k BTU unit in my living room and it will pull <1kW. I have a 4.4kW Magnum Energy inverter connected to 48v of Golf Cart batteries and it run my AC with no problems.