I've been thinking a lot (in the dark) about what to take away from the last couple days of safety blackouts (aka PSPS) in Northern California and have a few thoughts about what this means for our thinking about wildfire and energy in California.
My basic take is that any proposed solution to wildfire risks from the electric system needs to meet two key criteria.
(1) it has to insure that CA doesn't walk away from its commitment to equity in provision of electricity services. We need to insure that whatever solution we implement provides affordable abundant energy to low income Californians. It should improve equity, not make it worse;
(2) the solution has to work fast. Proposals that take a decade or two to implement are simply not fit to purpose given the urgency of the challenge. We cannot wait for ten or more years while the impacts of safety blackouts play out across our state.
I think these two criteria dramatically narrow the potential set of options. Municipalization is out because it will take too long. Undergrounding is out because it will take too long and will drive rates too high in the process.
Already in California, everywhere I go in the affluent community in which I live, there are active conversations about backup generation solutions - generators, solar plus batteries, etc.
I think we need to have a serious conversation about how we put those solutions into the hands of low to moderate income residents. They can be deployed fast. They can be effective in managing the impacts of blackouts.
My strong preference is for battery as opposed to generator backup. But I think we all have to be agnostic as to what the right solutions are in a given context and for a given customer. What's clear is that the present situation is unacceptable to endure for the next decade.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. We can turn this crisis into an opportunity both for homegrown California companies and their employees and for technology innovation at the grid edge. We should do that because that's the way to solve this problem quickly and equitably.
And most importantly, we can and must keep the promise to all Californians of a safe, reliable, affordable and ever cleaner supply of energy.
