Here’s the Best Reason to Go Solar: You Can’t Count on an Electric Utility

Maybe your electric supplier hasn’t pulled the plug on you, but Pacific Gas & Electric did a “planned shutdown” of power to 34,000 residents and businesses over the weekend.

It was a move to prevent wildfires, the utility said.  Increasing PG&E has been pulling the plug on its customers after it acknowledged that its older, poorly maintained power lines may have been responsible for the wildfires that devastated large areas of California last year.

Fearing that such outages are the “new normal,” some California wineries are looking at alternative sources, including solar and wind.   Smith-Madrone Winery has a portable generator which can power a transfer pump or a sump pump.  Not enough to begin to power the entire winery, too be sure.

Tom Eddy Winery also has a $250,000 generator, but it is large enough to power winemaking facilities. Storybook Mountain Winery in Calistoga has used solar for a decade, but because the power from their solar panels runs into the PG&E grid before being directed back to the winery, they are as vulnerable as if they didn’t have solar at all.  So Storybook uses a diesel generator as a backup.  Last year it ran the diesel generator for four months.

Comment:   Our belief is that, especially in areas where there is abundant sunlight, businesses need to be able to generate all the solar and/or windpower needed to sustain operations. There are batteries that can store large amounts of power overnight.

It’s sad that regulators have so utterly failed California’s residents and businesses that they cannot count on utilities to do their job, but that appears to be where we are.

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