Our neighborhood is having some power work done. They are replacing some of the cables and transformers housed in underground vaults. The power cut off 2 minutes ago and we are still working!! We love our Powerwalls!!
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Power just went out and we are still working.
- Thread starter jboy210
- Start date
Lol nice! I hope your neighbors aren't going to be without power for long. I imagine people want to be able to run the blower on their furnace to stay warm.
Time without power depends. Some people have an 8 AM-9 AM and then 4 PM-5 PM outage. For others, it is 8 AM - 5 PM. And this is the second attempt. A couple of weeks ago they sent us notices and then canceled the day of the shutdown without telling us until 4 PM or so. People were pretty upset with that one.
Wow, if someone loses power from 8am to 5pm that means no heat and a spoiled refrigerator. I hope PG&E is giving those people some portable generators to run their blower and fridges.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
It would probably be a not very efficient refrig if things spoil in that period of time. I had a 9 hour outage when I was down there and our refrig was still at 38 degrees at the end of the day (normally set to 34F). I guess that is because we don't open the door for very long when power is out.
Good point about the furnace. Kinda cool today, but it is supposed to starting raining in the afternoon. Nothing like a house be cold and damp on a rainy afternoon,
You know that reminds me... I'm going to drop my fridge to 34F instead of 38F to see how much more energy it takes to get that extra 4F.
I had my fridge set to 38F from back when PG&E was sending me the nasty-grams telling me to do all these things to stop wasting electricity. Totally forgot to yam that thing back to 34F.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
It's an interesting experiment. I am not sure of the difference 4 deg F would make, but when I set up our frig, I put a power meter on it to see what is the average amount of energy it drew during the summer over a period of 2 months normal use. In our case it used 110KWh over 61 days (about 75 Watts average draw). Of course as you know it will vary to refrig size, type, insulation value, etc.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Hmmm, yes and to say I recall getting some of those messages from PGE when I lived there. The wife likes to keep things as cold as possible without freezing. Seems that some things last a bit longer before they spoil. Not a huge difference, but it's what she likes. I'd be curious to know what difference in power that 4 degrees would make. I'm just going to take a wild guess that it won't be much.
It's too bad you can't borrow one of their generators then run it (on their gas) to fill your powerwalls
Yeah I'll let you know what I come up with... I agree the extra 4F shouldn't be a big deal compared to a lot of other things.
PG&E can just go eff off... we had been in the house all of like 4 months and and they started spamming us with all sorts of paper in the mail telling us how we're in the worst offending energy using category and we need to shape up blah blah blah. Their recommendations are sooooo tone deaf.
I remember some of their ideas:
- If it's hot outside, go swim in your community pool
- Don't use your oven, use an outdoor propane grill
- Line dry your clothes outside since it's nice and warm outside
- Don't use the dry setting on your dishwasher
- Buy blackout shades/drapes for use in living areas
Yeah, good luck convincing my wife any of those are a good idea.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Oh that's funny. Maybe you should tell them if they focus on trying to not set the state on fire and shutting off power, then they won't have to ask you to save energy
Then there was the time last summer when PG&E did some allegedly scheduled maintenance in our neighborhood, taking our entire street down for about 6 hours, but the "advance notice" arrived by snail mail the following day.
(On topic: Powerwalls and solar worked great.)
Bruce.
In 2019 I had 3 power outages. 2 of them were around 7-8 hours or so, and we didnt have any issues with food in the fridge etc. Of course, we didnt open the fridge(s) more than a very few times, etc. We have 2 fridges, one in the garage and one in the kitchen.
Yeah I know, I this is less efficient, I should get a beverage fridge in the house instead of the garage, etc.
Anyway, the third power outage was almost 3 days, and we lost all of our food (and my wife had just gone shopping and stocked up). These wernt PSPS, even though there have been a few announced for our area. the two "shorter" ones were maintenance, and the almost 3 day one was someone crashing into a pole / box etc in the neighborhood and the electrical cabling getting dragged out causing a 3 day repair.
Those 3 outages were what drove me to get powerwalls.It wasnt just the lost food, it was cold in the home as there was no heat (cold for us anyway) and 3 days without power in our home seemed like 3 weeks. I was getting ready to move us to a hotel, I couldnt take it any longer.
And to answer the inevitable next question, no a generator was never going to be an option for me, was not interested in the noise, etc. I dont even know if our HOA allows them but even if they do, I was not interested in one in the slightest. I also am not interested in any discussion that says to me "you didnt need to do anything other than run your fridge". If I was going to spend any money on this, I wanted to be able to "live like normal".
I'm sure this was part of your calculus as it was mine - living in an earthquake zone having solar + Powerwalls is really nice insurance. Even a moderate earthquake can disrupt gas distribution, whether gasoline, propane, or natural gas. Unless you have substantial stock of fuel on premises (which is dangerous and expensive) a generator may end up being nothing more than an expensive lawn decoration after an earthquake. Interestingly enough there's a higher likelihood of earthquakes during the summer, which means more PV production during the riskiest time. Nasa has a good article on the subject too.
Obviously not everyone lives in an earthquake zone so generators may make more sense on the east coast or midwest where snow and storms are more likley and can impact PV production more directly.
3 days before you are ready to bail to a hotel? You are a stronger person than me. I was ready to go to a hotel after 1 day of PSPS! No internet, TV, and a hot shower (tankless water heater) was too much. And this is with a generator at home, ran out of gas.
Having a PW in an outage makes the costs concerns disappear.
3 days before you are ready to bail to a hotel? You are a stronger person than me. I was ready to go to a hotel after 1 day of PSPS! No internet, TV, and a hot shower (tankless water heater) was too much. And this is with a generator at home, ran out of gas.
Having a PW in an outage makes the costs concerns disappear.
I'm sure I've told this story on this board before but before our PV + Powerwall system was installed we had frequent (weekly) outages due to a bad underground cable serving our street. One day my wife and I were at the gym not too far away from home and I got an alert from my home automation system, which was backed up by a regular computer UPS, that the power was out. I went home just to make sure everything was shut down and to check, sure enough the whole street was without power. We have a tankless gas water heater so without power I couldn't take a hot shower after working out so I called my wife and told her she probably wanted to shower at the gym before coming home. I caught her too late and she was already most of the way home. So I did what every tech dork and loving husband would do: I disconnected my UPS and used it to power the tankless gas water heater. It's fairly beefy and UPS said it could hold on for 30 minutes with the draw the water heater had so we enjoyed a nice shower while the utility came out to restore our power.
Lol my next door neighbor (he's a Boomer, I'm a Snowflake GenY) has paid this company for the last 30 years to have an emergency supply of propane:
Automatic Propane Delivery & Propane Budget Payment Plans | Campora
He basically has 12 of those canisters you get for your outdoor grill sitting in his shed. The company comes every few months and swaps them out with new tanks and charges him if he uses any while grilling. I've literally seen him grill one time. But he says if there's a mega earthquake, he's going to camp out in his house with his propane (and propane accessories) until everything is restored.
I asked him why he doesn't just get solar and Powerwalls, but he thinks he'll pass away before he sees the ROI on the solar/batteries. But yet somehow he's ok with the negative ROI on his mega propane stash.
He also has a Model X with like 4,000 miles over 3 years since he's empty-nesting and usually just has his wife use their Mercedes to get the grandkids.
Boomers are weird man.
PS, his propane tanks are stored nowhere near the PG&E gas riser or anything that can cause a spark. If his stash ever exploded, I'd think it was pretty cool for those few milliseconds up until it puts a giant hole in the side of my house.
Maybe you should grab a few of the steel trenching plates you see on the highway and use them to protect your home from your neighbor's Natural Gas depot.
BTW, I am Boomer and we have a Model X with 20,000 miles in 3 years, and Model 3 LR we hardly ever drive, < 2,000 miles in 13 months. Working from home for over 5 years, so don't need to drive much. But, have the money, so we drive what we want. Life is short and I will be dead in 30 years or less. And the one that dies with the most toys wins!!
Last edited:
