POWER SHIFTS

By JAIME BODDORFF

THE WESTERN MONARCH POPULATION HAS DECREASED BY 99.5 PERCENT SINCE THE 1980S. Last winter, PG&E cut power on expansive sections of the grid for extended periods in an effort to reduce fire risks. With days-long power outages looking like a new norm during certain weather conditions, resilient energy systems could become a new priority.

By JOEL HERSCH

The extended power outages in California last fall—when more than a million people’s homes went dark for two, three, even four days at a time—tested our dependency on the electrical grid. But they have also driven a new sense of urgency to develop resilient energy systems that don’t rely on that main grid, which is operated by the embattled and now bankrupt power utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E).

The grid shutdowns were a controversial safety tactic aimed at preventing wildfires, which have plagued parts of the state. Heavy winds have caused trees to fall, which then strike power lines. Paired with dry conditions in rural areas, those downed power lines can produce devastating fires, most notably the infamous Camp Fire in 2018 that incinerated Paradise, Calif. and killed more than 80 people. That series of horrific events led PG&E—which serves 5.4 million electric customers—to a $270 million settlement, extreme public

2656 Mission St. Santa Cruz, CA 831.469.8888 | sandbarsc.com

"When we built the building, we designed it to be a fully sustainable microgrid, which has solar on the roof, [battery] storage to store that energy, and then we have a natural gas generator that runs in the event of not having enough solar energy, during the winter months when the sun isn’t out as much."—Scott Laskey, president of Sandbar Solar

scrutiny, and now, also proactive damage control. From PG&E’s position, it is better to have customers wait in the dark than risk another community being burned to the ground.

And while many residents and municipalities are prepared for the occasional power outage, the real complicating factor now is the extended duration, making full energy resilience—a term known as “islanding”—increasingly appealing. “These shutdowns are very different than what we’ve been used to,” says Mark Dettle, the director of public works at the City of Santa Cruz. “Usually it’s a short duration, but these are much longer; it can get up to three or four days. And they’re happening in areas that we’re less accustomed to, like parts of downtown.”

A key example of how the extended shutdowns impact municipal infrastructure is the loss of traffic signals at busy intersections, which Dettle says can get ugly.

“Traffic signals only have a six to eight hour backup operation time,” he says. “Usually that’s long enough for the power to be restored, but you can’t handle that for three days."

Dettle says that if cities can expect PG&E to initiate multi-day blackouts whenever it is very windy and dry out, the backup technology for power outages will have to change. And in many cases, the backup would likely be new resilient battery systems that can endure longer periods.

What that resiliency technology looks like is generally a combination of solar panels, battery storage, and backup generators, which altogether establish a microgrid. While most of the city’s critical infrastructure has backup generators, they run out of fuel during an extended grid shutdown, leaving the complication of ongoing refueling, Dettle says.

In response to increased public interest, and specifically the recent