Most solar panels simply generate DC electrical current. Then you need an inverter to change it to AC, and transform it to 120 volts. Not too difficult.
But you also need it to be at 60 cycles/second (Hz), AND to be synchronized with the 50 Hz of the grid*. That takes lot more complex (expensive) circuitry to do, apparently. So most solar panels don’t have that – they just sync up with the grid, so if the grid is down, they can’t generte at 60Hz at all – they just shut down.
- This is true of all electrical sources on the grid. Every time they start up a new generator in the line of them at Boulder Dam, or at coal-fired electric plant, or wherever, the operators have to ‘lock sync’ it with the 60 Hz of the grid. This can take some work on their part.
Regulations are moving now towards a preference for on-site storage for home solar instead of net-metering. (As opposed to utility-scale solar farms which output directly to the grid.) Those battery systems do require an automated transfer switch to protect the grid.
I’m not sure if CA regulations are moving that way,but I am familiar with on site storage. I do it 
This. These utilities have legal monopolies over large areas. They make big profits, and funnel tons of money to their “top guys” in pay, benefits, and lavish offices.
When it’s hot or cold they want to jack up the rates. When the Saudis fuck us again, they want to jack up the rates. When they have a big conservation campaign and we fall for it, they cry about lost revenue and jack up the rates.
it’s theft on a grand scale.
… and this.
That no-power always seemed stupid to me… All you would have to do is wire in a current sensing unit and relay, just like you have in emergency lighting boxes. OR a switch.
When the power goes down, you disconnect from the utility and hook up to your own batteries and charging system. When the power comes back up, you toggle back onto the grid.
But the way solar is promoted and very poorly “explained” out here in Cali, it always sounded too much like “if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is”
Buyer beware.
Such switches are readily available – anybody who installs an emergency generator at their home or farm will have one installed by their electrician. They can be either manual cutovers, or automated ones. (But this requires that your solar system produce 120V, 60Hz AC current on its own. Most simple (cheap) solar systems don’t.)
In Los Angeles too? IIRC LADWP exclusively serves the city, plus mich of the Owens Valley.
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a few hours later:
Is that $30 billion in upgrades figure accurate? If so, then it’s not really much of a mystery why they haven’t done it, and it has nothing to do with the vast CEO pay (which a quick Google search says is $8 million a year). PG&E’s total profit for was $4.38 billion for 2018. Even leaving aside law suits, and if they poured 100% of their profits into upgrades, something they couldn’t do, it would take them nearly 10 years to pay for it…and, on the flip side, they would probably be making…well, the same amount. Maybe their maintenance costs would lower, a bit, with a new infrastructure, but it’s not going to really change their business model much if any. The state MAY allow them to increase the price for energy, but Californian’s already pay very high prices for energy…higher than most other states in the US in fact, so there is limited scale on that front. PG&E would almost certainly have to raise rates substantially to pay for such upgrades, if that’s really what they would cost.
I saw this on the news earlier, and was reading through some of the issues from a bit more balanced a source than the OP, and, as usually, the real issue is more complex than ‘we sent a man to the moon and now we can’t have nice things!’ or ‘evil CEOs are making too much!!’. I don’t say that PG&E is blameless…from what I’ve heard, they are about the slimiest power company in the state, if not the country, and have been seriously mismanaged. But the flip side of that is that, like most large power companies, they are a state sponsored monopoly, regulated and to an extent controlled by their states political process.
As a last point, at least from what I read, this was actually a very prudent course as conditions in that part of California are pretty dicey right now, and this was probably the best move they could make. Yeah, it sucks for those affected…millions of houses. But it would suck more if they had another fire in that area right now with those conditions, so anything that might mitigate that has to be seriously considered.
Forgive me if I do not know how these things work, but wouldn’t they finance the work, then write off most of the cost on their taxes?
Possibly so. However it ironically also contains potential seeds for a reverse disaster. Water companies are scrambling to rent enough generators to power pumping stations in higher elevations. Meanwhile hordes of DIY’ers are preparing to power up personal generators. If this outage lasts the expected ~5 day period( shutdown Wednesday and Thursday, then a few days to painstakingly restore power to all affected ), all it could take is an improperly installed/serviced generator sparking to create a fire. And if the darkened water utilities then also struggle getting enough water to the neighborhood fire hydrants it might get very messy.
This is of course setting aside all the ancillary issues of necessary home medical devices and whatnot.
No one (well hardly anyone) is suggesting that they do all of that maintenance immediately. The contention AIUI is that they cheaped out on maintenance over the last X years (presumably to pay the C-suite and keep the stock price up), leading to the current crisis.
So, as is the American capitalist way, they privatized the profits and will likely social the costs.
Sacramento Bee says it will 800,000
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article235910202.html
Fortunately, my county will not be affected.
800,000 customers. According to my local rag, that means 800,000 customer accounts. PG&E has no real idea how many people live in your house, so the probable number is well over a million. How far over is difficult to estimate.
ETA: To put that in perspective, PG&E claimed ~5.4 million customers in 2018 covering ~16 million people.
I’m in the affected area but have not yet lost power. Keeping my fingers crossed but it seems likely I’ll lose power sometime today. The strange thing is the weather here is quite mild. Wind speed is about 1 mph.
Bloomberg says this could cost $2.4B and affect 2.4M people (:34 video with text and music, spoken audio at :21)
Writing things off just means deducting the cost from your taxable income, AKA “profit”. Sure, you don’t pay tax on that money, but that’s because you don’t have the money anymore.
The company shareholders would much rather have the money and pay some tax on it, than not have it at all.
Yeah, OK we actually DO know how to provide power AND avoid falling transmission lines from starting fires. It’s actually pretty simple: you put the transmission lines underground. Hey, it even protects them from any fires that DO occur!
Why don’t we do this? It costs money. Last I heard it still costs more to bury power lines than string them up on poles. Sometimes there are also issues with landowners and digging.
So, because the US doesn’t want to spend money on better infrastructure we’re stuck with a system developed in, what, the 1920’s? Almost a century old.
Sure, we can slap a little blame in the PG&E executives, but you can also slap a little on the residents/voters of the affected areas who will happily NIMBY reforms into vapor.