Last year there were devastating wildfires in California, including in Paradise, California, where it was concretely concluded that PG&E transmission lines sparking and failing caused the “Camp” fire, which claimed over 80 lives and wiped out an entire community of homes and businesses.
So this year, PG&E, now in bankruptcy, and its sister utility in Southern California, SCE, proactively shut down power on its transmission lines in anticipation of high fire conditions. Millions of Californians were without power for multiple days this past week, and have been warned that this will continue to be a regular strategy. Any business with freezers or refrigerated items will have to scramble for onsite backup battery power solutions or lose inventory and business. Any research or medical facility needing consistent temperatures will need their own generators.
“Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program, tweeted that the PG&E blackout could result in anywhere from $65 million to $2.5 billion in losses… This is happening in a state with strong regulations and enforcement mechanisms… The government acknowledges the risk climate change poses, including making forests more flammable… All this means we need new ways of thinking about how we get power. That, of course, includes solar, but it may mean turning to microgrids, or turning to community-scale renewables. And in California, it means burying power lines.”1
Wouldn’t it be terrific if our Wood River Valley community learned from this example rather than having to experience devastation and loss of life ourselves? Idaho Power started out on the transmission line project because they were so worried that the existing line, which goes up over East Fork into Elkhorn, is seriously deteriorated, with old wooden poles and bird holes. Yet, along the way, they morphed the project into a new transmission line up the valley and abandoned repairing the existing line.
Wildfire is a reality anyway in the West, with lightning and now a hotter, drier climate; we don’t need to worry about an old transmission line starting a fire in the back door to the Sun Valley resort. If we installed storage batteries now at our substations, we could run backup power while the existing line is repaired with metal pole replacements and we could perhaps also bury a four-mile stretch over the hill to really ‘harden’ the transmission line. The batteries could provide for future emergencies when the power doesn’t reach Hailey to begin with, and help us to avoid the pain that California is experiencing now with preventative rolling blackouts that will put people out of business.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/think-californias-preemptive-blackouts-are-scary-buckl-1838912490