Interesting perceptions thanks for listing. One thing you don't mention is who lives in your house and is it used for living only.

I ask because if you had children who needed to do homework without power, that may have been more difficult. If batteries are fully charged on devices then they can run for a while, but after school or whenever children arrive home, the first thing that needs to be done is to plug them in so that batteries can recharge and homework can be done. This can be a big problem as oftentimes homework has to be submitted before midnight, particularly for college students, without being classed as tardy and oftentimes tests and exams have to be done within a certain time frame so driving to the nearest library takes precious time.

I ask because if you work in a global business when zoom meetings with clients/customers from all over the world can take place 24 hours a day. Just because it is evening here in California, it doesn't mean that the work day has ended when it may just be starting in Asian countries and evening work calls are often carried out at home after dinner as opposed to being done say in the office during the day.

I ask because if you were baking bread or similar and the oven suddenly goes off, the bread cannot be saved but has to be thrown out. Many baked items take over an hour to cook and cannot be eaten undercooked. Many meat dishes can be allowed to cool and then continue cooking, but baked goods can't.

For many the incovenience as you state is just an inconvenience, but for others losing power is much more serious.

This doesn't take into account how dangerous intersections can be when lights go out or who would like to be sitting in say a dentist chair when suddenly there is no power.

Charleston Center, Piazzas and others, lost power for over 12 hours one Sunday in the fall. I have no space to write more, but what is inconvenient to some is costly and hard work for others including lost custom and wastage.

Happy New Year! Some of us take it in stride when the power goes out, and others get all worked up. When the power goes out, I take a break from life and do absolutely nothing. Things can wait. If you insist on having power with no interruptions buy a generator.

Happy New Year to you all.

Power goes out every now and then, and then it inevitably comes back. Good!

BART has an accident and trains stop, and they inevitably start again. Like today. Accident is bad, restart is Good!

Caltrain hits a pedestrian (BAD!) and trains are delayed but eventually schedules are met again. Recovering is good. Focus on the good side, why not?

A tree falls on a power line, things happen, but PG&E come out and fix it, and they usually know where to go first and where to postpone. Mostly good!

Coffee runs out. Darn, have to go without coffee for the morning, drink tea, or maybe I (darn-it!) have to walk a mile to the coffee shop.

My/your flight is delayed, then delayed for two more hours, then another hour delay, and then the flight is canceled. Bad, but there may be valid reasons...

The car has a flat tire. Should I blame clean energy systems or electrification, being an EV, lack of gas, the bike path on the road? Of course not.

It rains, but the weather forecast didn't say so. Would/should I complain?

It's what it is. We, Jennifer, Sherry, and I, we take it in stride. Life remains good. Life should be random. Accepting random events at reasonably probability is healthy. It makes (some of) us happier -- we are alive! If everything is predicable, what's left to experience?

Not that I _want_ these events when I'm in the middle of one, but I accept it. And I don't agonize disproportionately about one of them, for example, just because it involves clean energy or electricity. I give all these systems a fair break, and I want them to strive for the highest reasonably standards of reliability, safety, and affordability. But there lies the trade-off, and we should not ask any of these systems for 100% on any such parameters. 100% reliability is infinite cost.

Let's all be positive about 2024. It is BRAND NEW YEAR, after all.

Ole, with a real name

Happy New Year, Sherry (et al.)

Thanks for your report on the power outage and your take on it. And best wishes in 2024.

Following the posts on being positive, I'd add that we can also be prepared: a portable power station is useful for camping and power outage; a go bag is convenient in an emergency; having a big safe-water jug (or water purification filter or tablets) helps when tap water may be contaminated. We need to invest in public infrastructure, at the same time we can be resilient when unexpected happens.

Some people think that gas appliances are superior because they are immune to power outages. Not true. A natural gas central furnace needs electricity for the fans to blow the warm air around the house, so that won't work during a power outage. A gas stovetop would work (assuming you have matches to light it because the clicker won't work without power) but you won't have a vent fan so you need to be careful what you cook.

No need to go without a couple of lights, as today's LED bulbs last a long time on a small "camping" battery such as a Jackery. I have the smallest/cheapest one, and it got me through my last outage with one light. I started to think about plugging my internet router into it, too, but the power came back on before I got to that. But I'm pretty sure that would work, too.

Glad to see many have thought about how to deal with power outages and that most easily cope!

However, I hope we will keep in mind that not all are so well situated. For example, an 8 hour outage last year would have meant that we would have been unable to clean/change a bed-bound relative as their bed depended on electric motors to shift their position.

Electric grid reliability is a problem we solved over 50 years ago, and we should not tolerate backsliding. In the 2000s, Seattle's city-owned power utility suffered a number of outages, and rather than "cope" they began a several-year effort to identify the causes and to implement corrective measures. This was successful, and mostly involved more frequent and better-directed preventive maintenance, actions such as using longer-lasting hardware to reduce labor hours spent on replacement, and training and investment to improve workforce skills. Employee morale also improved.

Many comments on the "demand" side of events. Assumptions that exclude the "supply" side of events. Above comment is correct - we solved these problems 50 years ago. But all systems have aged and are failing due to lack of maintenance and replacement of aging systems. The state is not financing these required upgrades.

San Diego County wastewater plane is failing due to lack of maintenance putting waste into the beaches and water. Demands of additional housing will tax all same systems across the state. Additional housing will require and upgrade to the basic "supply" systems.

The city of SF has aging underground ducts for transport of water and waste. That has to be corrected for increased housing requirements. We also have failing underground systems. All have to be replaced.

Any changes in how the system works has to be addressed at the supply side as well as the demand side. And who is paying for that.

It's great that you kept a positive attitude and had the means and the health to cope with the power outage without too much trouble. Many others have disabilities or limited means and don't have it so easy.

We should demand better from our power utilities and elected officials. Some power outages can't be avoided, but this is the year 2024. We should not accept intermittent electricity and frequent power outages.

Hi everyone. Thanks for taking the time to read and write in. Lots of great comments. The only thing I'd add is that the main point I was trying to make here is that, in our area, the inconvenience of power outages isn't made much worse by electrification (of cars, water heating, space heating, stove). That is, given the Bay Area's climate and general outage profile, I don't think reliability is a compelling argument against transportation and building electrification. See, for example, @local teacher's comment from the previous blog post:

We have a hybrid vehicle but will have decided we cannot trust a fully electric vehicle for a variety of reasons, one of which is the increasing number of electrical outages.

I was trying to push back on this line of thinking. Indeed, EVs are likely to be a tool for riding out power outages, though that is still a few years away.

One thing @local teacher wonders is if increasing demand, due to electrification, will exacerbate reliability. I actually think it should improve reliability, but it's a good question. The main concern I would have is if the grid becomes a bigger target for intentional disruption. I will try to talk more about the planning process, and about intentional disruptions, this year.

Again, thanks for the good comments and questions.

Thanks Sheri for your summing up.

I think it is possible for some EVs to be used as a battery source for emergency power. Enough to charge a phone, or laptop, for example. It is a good reason why regular overnight charging of a vehicle means that the family can have some power in an outage.

I agree about the intentional interruption concerns. Our infrastructure is not well protected against such things generally.

@Bystander, thanks for your comment. Two things.

(a) You say that an EV would supply enough power to "charge a phone, or laptop, for example". In reality, it can supply much more, all lights, refrigeration, electronics, hot water, even some heating. If your electric bill is 600 kWh/month, then that is about 20 kWh/day. An EV battery has say 60 kWh. If it is half full it has 30 kWh. That is enough energy for a whole house for more than a full day. Assuming appliances don't draw too much power at the same time and you have a big enough inverter, just a portion of an EV battery can make a day-long outage invisible, though a lot of space heating, oven baking, or clothes drying would be difficult.

(b) You say that "Our infrastructure is not well protected against such things generally". I'd be interested in why you think the grid is not well protected. My impression is we have done a lot to harden it and continue to do so, which is why we see so few regional outages in the face of relentless attacks. But we need to keep working on this, no doubt.

If you're able to install back-up equipment at your house in case of an outage, please consider installing a battery instead of a generator. To save money, the battery could be sized to maintain only your essential systems, not to power the entire house; we have such a system, and it made a recent 8-hour outage much less worrisome.
If you have solar panels, you could manage quite a while using a back-up battery. No need to worry about running out of fuel to power a generator.

If you have electrical equipment medical needs, you may qualify for assistance from PGE; per their website:
“The Portable Battery Program (PBP) offers extra support to those who are reliant on electricity for medical needs. Through the program, qualifying customers can receive backup portable batteries. These batteries can help power medical devices, assistive technology and durable medical equipment during outages. They can also help refrigerate medicines."