Hmm, I often hear people brag that if California was a separate nation, it would be ranked #5 (2019) in the world between Germany and India. If this economy is dependent on electricity, why can’t we figure out how to provide a stable and inexpensive source of power after all this time? I got this email from SoCal Edison this morning:
We need your help. Very hot weather is expected to continue for most of Southern California through Wednesday, causing stress on the power grid. Since this heatwave began, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has issued two statewide Stage 3 emergencies and directed SCE to reduce its electrical power load, including through rotating outages of customers.
I know there rolling blackouts at work on Friday, and I heard that some neighborhoods in Tustin had their power shut off for about an hour. It’s probably people running their air conditioners more hours than usual. CALISO has a lot of interesting information. Here is today’s forecast:
I guess the problem is the gap between forecasted peak demand (49,726 MW) and available capacity (44,426 MW). If so, the gap is over 5,000 MW. It’s even more interesting if you look at the supply and demand curves by hour. Here is Friday’s data:
The demand peaks at around 5-6 pm, probably when people get home from work, fire up the AC, and start cooking dinner. I know our house had the AC going basically 24 hours since mid last week. At the same time, a large part of the supply starts to drop off (green line). That’s our renewable power supply, which is mostly solar. Solar generation peaks during noon at about 11,000 MW and drops off to basically zero after 7:00 pm, just when there’s peak demand. You can see we have to start up all the natural gas generation plants to fill the gap.
So is California’s focus on solar power wrong? I have about 3.7 MW of solar panels on my house so unless my AC is running or I’m charging the car, I’m a net producer during the day. Ironically, I wanted more panels on my install but Edison would only allow me 12 panels. I managed to get 14 installed but I still don’t know why they limited the solar supply, especially when we still have rolling blackouts. When the AC is on, I don’t generate nearly enough power to compensate, thanks to Edison’s restrictions.
Where’s nuclear power? If you look at the supply chart, there is a flat dark blue line of ~2,250 MW. This is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, the only nuclear power plant in California since San Onofre shut down. Diablo Canyon is also scheduled to be shut down, seemingly due to protests from environmentalists. I’m a big supporter of renewable energy. I installed solar panels on my house, and I drive a 100% electric vehicle. I have not gone to the gas station in almost four years and ~60,000 miles. But it’s got to make economic sense. I think the vitriolic opposition to nuclear power is stupid and short-sighted. We should be focused on more research for safer and cleaner power, with the goal of fusion power that runs off seawater. Instead, we build tons of solar farms that are only good during the day. At least the sky is sunny most of the time in Southern California. Could be worse…
I thought a lot about this when I was on PD. The cycler needed to stay on for 10+ hours each night. What if the power goes out? I think it shuts off after 30 minutes or something and you’re supposed to skip dialysis for that day. What if power goes out for > one hour each night of the week? Do all the patients just get sick or die? I looked into a battery backup but it appeared I needed either a huge data center backup unit, or a Tesla Powerwall. How many dialysis patients can afford that on their own? If I ever consider home hemodialysis, this will become a concern again.
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I ended up paying ~$850 for electricity in June. That’s for all the net usage for 12 months since I have solar panels. At $0.20/kW, thats about 4.25 MW of electricity I had to pull from the grid last year since I don’t generate enough with only 14 panels to cover my usage. Wish you had those MW today huh, Edison?
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Update: 3:30 pm
Just got another email from Edison warning customers of pending blackouts. Of course they only say it will be an hour long but not the location. Do they not plan this out ahead of time or do they throw darts at a map and shut down areas at random? I think I’ve heard that they do not want to give criminals a heads up of areas that will be without power, but you also don’t let your customers prepare either.
If you look at CALISO now, the forecasted peak demand is 47,264 MW versus an updated available capacity of 50,632 MW. It seems like they always over-forecast the peak demand and find additional supply. At first, I thought CALISO just spent money and bought power from other sources outside the region but that had gone down steadily since 6:00 am. Instead, there is a huge ramp in natural gas power production. Is there new capacity brought online just now? Can’t they forecast this with any degree of accuracy?
Our AC is still on and has been all day. I have not charged my car yet. I already have the charging set up so if I plug it in during the day, the car will wait until after midnight to charge. Since I have flat electricity rates by hour, I mainly did it to reduce the load on the house wiring. I thought the AC would be off by midnight so I can avoid running 100 amps through the breaker box. Both are on dual 50 A breakers.
The email mentioned the alert period lasts until midnight but the critical times are from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Let see if the lights start going off in about an hour. I have my cable modem and Wifi router on a battery backup so I can still blog in the dark for a few hours if the power goes out. Probably sweating profusely but I’ll have Internet.
Life with chronic diseases 