Arent the rolling blackouts 4 hours or less? That’s not long enough to throw out food unless you just open your fridge doors for the entire time the power is out.
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The restrictions on the percentage of ICEs that begin in 2026, not 2035, and it’s mandating more than double the current number of new EV sales.
Given that the grid is struggling to keep up with current demand, I’m skeptical they can handle the increase in demand that’s coming… not solely from EVs, but partially, certainly. The population of CA continues to grow so there’s already organic increase in demand not counting all of the new EVs coming online.
Eh, lower Manhattan is never going to have that big a problem. There is more than enough money to solve a little bit of ocean problem (see Netherlands). The people who are really going to be suffering are those least able to cope, sadly.
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I think there is only one left: Diablo Canyon up near Hearst Castle.
Make a melt-down-proof one, and CA will take it. Or, make them in AZ and hook them up to the Hoover Dam grid. Or, make them in Mexico.
(It’s the earthquakes, mostly.)
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These “restrictions” are always pushed back due to the impracticality.
I do agree that the electricity grid needs major improvements. While they’re upgrading they can replace all the shitty, rusty connectors that fail and cause the wildfires.
All this means higher electricity prices, which I think are pretty high already. Market at work.
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Now I’m no expert, but I’m assuming that when I get a power outage of 2-3 minutes, it’s not that they’ve fixed the problem in 2-3 minutes, it’s that there’s sufficient excess capacity that they can re-route where my electricity is coming from in 2-3 minutes and leave it that way for the several hours (days?) it takes to actually fix whatever caused the outage.
Certainly I have had the experience of hearing a loud crash of lightning followed by an almost immediate loss of power followed by the power coming back on in a couple minutes and then I go on a walk or drive somewhere and see downed power lines that are not yet fixed or see power company workers doing their thing at a transformer. 
Even the melt-down-not-proof ones are roughly the safest forms of energy per kwh, I think? Meltdowns just make for great TV. And doesn’t help you guys built it in a place you named Diablo Canyon.
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The state projects that electric vehicles will consume 5.4% of the state’s electricity, or 17,000 gigawatt-hours, by 2030.
That sounds like an increase that can be managed much easier than afternoon peak usage that is temperature driven with fewer options.
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I don’t know; I haven’t grilled her on their reasoning. Maybe she & her husband are including other lengthy blackouts (which are just as problematic) in her analysis.
It doesn’t really matter WHY there’s insufficient power… it matters THAT there’s insufficient power. If a tree goes down or a truck runs into a power line and that’s sufficient to shut the power down for hours, that too is evidence of an insufficient grid.
Yes, I assume the 35% in 2026 is not going to happen.
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From the article ThePresident posted:
This seems like a sensible market solution. Nudge people to charge at night when it’s cheaper.
The last time I evaluated time-of-day pricing, it was absurd. It was something pretty close to:
Flat rate pricing = X
Or
7 AM - 9 PM = 2X
5 AM - 7 AM & 9 PM - midnight = X
midnight - 5 AM = 0.8X
Um… no thank you. I choose to pay X at all times. I’m not doing laundry or running my air conditioning between midnight and 5 AM which is the only possible savings, and pretty modest savings at that compared to the huge increase during peak hours.
I think maybe 9 PM - midnight on Sundays might have also been 0.8X, but not Saturday. I also don’t need an excuse to procrastinate doing the laundry until the 11th hour of the weekend, so that too was way too small a motivation to switch to time-of-day pricing.
Seattle’s pricing, assuming they’ve set reasonable hours for peak & non-peak, seems like it will drive a lot more behavioral changes.
I think the real motivation for time-of-day pricing is that without it, there will be rolling black-outs during the peak usage times. And rolling black-outs suck.
One shouldn’t get a “choice” in the example you made.
Should be “1.5X all the time, or…” your time-of-day schedule.
Anywho, time to install solar panels, for those rolling blackouts.
PG&E has had time of day pricing for some time.
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Yeah, as an adult I’ve never had it forced on me; I’ve always been given a choice where it was promoted as both environmentally friendly AND money-saving.
But when looking at the rates it was obviously not going to save anyone, except possibly a Bitcoin miner who chose to only mine at night, any money. Maybe also pot-growers who could flip the lights off from 7 AM - 9 PM and on from 9 PM to 7 AM (is 10 hours a day enough for pot?)
I think we did have time-of-day pricing when I was a little girl, as I vaguely recall my mother waiting to put clothes in the dryer until after 10:00 PM, or drying them on the clothesline. But I have no idea if that was something my parents chose or if it was forced on them. If they chose it, for certain my father would have run the numbers both ways and concluded that they would save money by having it.
I didn’t have to run any numbers… it was pretty obvious to me that no normal person could possibly save with that pricing.
Oh, and hit the beach. Guessing this weekend the beach is gonna be WAY crowded. Holiday + 100+ temps in Valleys and I.E. (“Inland Empire”).
My local WeatherUnderground station says it’s 104 right now, 9:30AM. No way! And I’m not even in the hottest hotspots! Meanwhile, the hourly says it won’t top 99. Definitely a disconnect there.
73 in Santa Barbara.
75 in Santa Monica.
When the power goes out, I’ll be in my pool. Yeah, it’s above 80, with no heater.
Oh, and major fire near The 5 in Castaic.
Then criticize the article, not other posters.
Let’s be clear about the first part of my post. I wasn’t defending twig’s article or post but pointing out how your posting style is contrary to “having a legitimate discussion.”
The second part of my post was related to the requirement that only EV’s could be sold wrt “new auto sales”. That may or may not have been part of the linked article and I’ll admit that my statement may not have been clear; but standing on “single issue” actions without any acknowledgements or considerations for other impacts–especially disparate impacts–is also not going to be generally viewed as “having a legitimate discussion.”
In the future, please refrain from directly criticizing other posters and focus on criticizing the content posted. Consider this a soft warning.
Also, using another poster’s name in what can be viewed as being disparaging is also frowned upon.
It seems to me that electric cars are pretty ideal for doing mainly off-peak-usage charging. Plug it in the evening when you get home. Easy.
I think that’s the problem. 4-9 is generally peak electric usage time an solar renewables aren’t filling a lot of the demand. They’d much prefer you plug in just before bed at say 9/10 when peak demand tails off substantially.
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I know i have one friend that has his car setup with an automatic “off-peak” charging thingy, so he plugs it in when he gets home but doesn’t start charging until offpeak (10pm, i think is what he had set up).