Don’t charge your electric car in California… true or false?

[unclebilly]

Is this reality or Fake News?

[cockerpunk]

why dont you google it, rather than make us?

[stevej37]

Best abide by it.

[Neilk]

Well in Texas, they asked us to raise our thermostats to prevent blown outs. So it’s not a liberal California thing. Our infrastructure sucks and Congress is playing games.

[stevej37]

Our local utilities want us to sign-up for summer usage savings.

If you sign...they put a controller on your AC and it's held back at peak hours.

[flipper35]

By: Katherine Worsham
Posted at 6:17 PM, Jun 17, 2021
and last updated 8:19 PM, Jun 17, 2021

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which oversees the state's power grid, says there's a potential that some Californians could face rotating power outages Thursday evening.

If required, outages would take place between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and last for one to two hours.

Earlier, CAISO issued a Flex Alert, a voluntary call for people to reduce electricity use between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., due to increased power usage as a result of hot weather across the state. If demand exceeds supply, CAISO may ask energy companies to turn off power to help prevent larger outages to the grid.

PG&E says it is notifying customers in its service area that could be affected.

According to the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services, that may include the Paso Robles area.

To find out if your neighborhood could be affected, visit www.pge.com/rotatingoutages.

CAISO has also issued a Flex Alert for Friday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

PG&E shared the following tips for customers to reduce energy use during the day:

Pre-cool your home or workspace by lowering your thermostat. Turn it off if you will be away from home.
Use a fan instead of air conditioning when possible.
Use major appliances, like your dishwasher or washer and dryer, early in the morning
Charge your electronic devices before the late afternoon
Set your pool pump to run overnight instead of during the day.
Keep your refrigerator full (with bottles of water if nothing else) and unplug your second refrigerator if you have one.

During the critical hours of 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., consumers are asked to:

Adjust your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher, after cooling your home to below-normal levels in the morning.
Don’t charge your electric vehicle until after 10 p.m.
Draw drapes and turn off unnecessary lighting.
Limit the opening of refrigerators, a major user of electricity in most homes. The average refrigerator is opened 33 times a day.
Keep refrigerator full (with bottles of water if nothing else) and unplug your second refrigerator if you have one.
Avoid using major appliances, such as your oven. Instead, cook on the stove, use a microwave or grill outside.

From https://www.ksby.com/news/local-news/californias-power-grid-operator-warns-of-potential-for-rotating-outages

[dad911]

Just charge them with a generator.

[Z-man]

This gives me pause when I consider installing a smart thermostat... Careful what you sign up for...

Texas power companies heated up some customers' homes last week by remotely controlling their smart thermostats, KHOU 11 reported Thursday.

One resident in the state, which is facing a heat wave that is straining its power grid, told KHOU 11 his family had awoken from a nap sweating and shocked their home had gotten as hot as 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

It turns out they had enrolled their thermostats in an energy-conservation promotion called Smart Savers Texas, run by a company called EnergyHub, in partnership with power companies. The program gives EnergyHub permission to adjust participants' smart thermostats remotely during times of peak energy demand, in exchange for entry into a sweepstakes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remotely-raised-smart-thermostats-temperatures-2021-6#:~:text=Texas%20power%20companies%20automaticall y%20raised,middle%20of%20a%20heat%20wave&text=Texas%20power%20companies%20remotely%20adjust ed,the%20temperature%20to%20save%20energy.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by dad911

Just charge them with a generator.

Someone should design a small handy home generator that you can shovel coal into.

[red 928]

Renewable Mandates Are Leading to Electricity Shortages and Price Spikes in California
BY IER
AUGUST 18, 2020

California does it again. In 2001, California experienced rolling blackouts due to energy market manipulation by energy wholesalers and a shortage of pipelines.
Now, Californians are again facing rolling blackouts, and this time it is due to California’s forced reliance on solar and wind power.
Due to a severe heatwave and without the wind blowing and the sun shining, California’s day-ahead electricity prices spiked at above $1000 per megawatt-hour on August 14.
California’s renewable portfolio standard mandates that 60 percent of its electricity must come from renewable energy (mainly wind and solar power) by 2030.
Now, residents are asked to conserve electricity to keep the power on—something most other states do not have to endure
This should be a warning to America about the risks of (the current administration's) Clean Energy Standard that would require 62 percent of our electricity which is now produced from natural gas and coal to come from non-carbon sources, which would primarily be wind and solar power.

The California Independent System Operator, which manages the power grid, declared an emergency shortly after 6:30 p.m. on August 14 and directed utilities around the state to decrease their power loads. Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, needed to turn off power to about 200,000 to 250,000 customers in rotating outages for about an hour at a time. Other utilities were told to do the same, affecting up to 4 million people.
The emergency declaration ended just before 10 p.m. The requirement to shed load resulted from temperatures hitting triple digits in many areas, resulting in higher air conditioning use. In addition, cloudy weather from the remnants of a tropical weather system reduced power generation from solar plants. California’s solar mandates are making the state much more reliant on the weather for electricity production.

California’s Anti-fossil Fuel Policies

California generally produces a surplus of solar energy during the day and when that happens, other power generators are ordered to cut back their production so that the electric grid is not overloaded. On Friday and Saturday, August 14 and 15, about 1,000 megawatt-hours were curtailed—enough to power 30,000 homes. This curtailment resulted in supply shortages as solar energy output plunged at the end of the day with the electricity demand remaining high.

Many of California’s natural gas and nuclear plants have had to shut down because they cannot compete with heavily subsidized renewable energy. For example, a 10-year-old natural gas power plant in California’s Inland Empire is being prematurely shuttered this year despite being built to operate for forty or more years. Also, California’s state water regulations are forcing the shutdown of natural gas plants along the coast that can quickly ramp up generation during peak demand periods or when solar power plunges. Because of policies promulgated by California’s anti-fossil energy politicians, Californians are paying for new renewable power when they already have natural gas capacity readily available to meet demand 24/7.

Because the spot price for power in the summer can increase more than 30-fold from noon to dusk, California’s utilities are forced to build expensive batteries to store solar energy that can be released in the evening, which will cost Californians even higher electricity prices, despite its prices already being one of the highest in the country. Utilities do not mind this result because new capital investment necessitated by government actions ultimately means higher prices for consumers and higher profits for utilities.

Conclusion

California’s blackouts are a product of its politically-determined reliance on intermittent, unreliable renewable energy, not a product of a heatwave. So far, California’s environmental policies have resulted in 1.3 million megawatt-hours of reliable power being curtailed this year. Due to the state’s renewable portfolio standard and its subsidization of wind and solar energy, the state is suffering from the loss of reliable power that cannot compete with the state’s environmental policies. Natural gas and nuclear power plants are being shuttered. In fact, the state’s only remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, which provides 20 percent of the state’s carbon dioxide-free energy and 9 percent of its electricity, is scheduled to shut in a few short years. As a result, when temperatures rise, Californians need to curtail electricity usage and suffer from rolling blackouts as well as paying some of the highest electricity prices in the nation. Currently, most states do not need to endure the loss of power when temperatures escalate due to sufficient power from reliable sources—coal, natural gas, and nuclear power.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Z-man

This gives me pause when I consider installing a smart thermostat... Careful what you sign up for...



https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remotely-raised-smart-thermostats-temperatures-2021-6#:~:text=Texas%20power%20companies%20automaticall y%20raised,middle%20of%20a%20heat%20wave&text=Texas%20power%20companies%20remotely%20adjust ed,the%20temperature%20to%20save%20energy.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you've got to sign up for them to have access. That was an option when I got my first smart thermostat 12-13 years ago. I didn't sign up and my thermostat didn't phone home and wasn't reachable by "their cloud" so my thermostat never got messed with by anyone other than me.

Smart IOT stuff for smart home, should, IMO, be reachable on the home network. If you want it reachable from the Internet, you're asking for trouble because the average company that provides service for IOT stuff isn't going to apply that much security to their "cloud" which has access to your stuff.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by masraum

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you've got to sign up for them to have access. That was an option when I got my first smart thermostat 12-13 years ago. I didn't sign up and my thermostat didn't phone home and wasn't reachable by "their cloud" so my thermostat never got messed with by anyone other than me.

Smart IOT stuff for smart home, should, IMO, be reachable on the home network. If you want it reachable from the Internet, you're asking for trouble because the average company that provides service for IOT stuff isn't going to apply that much security to their "cloud" which has access to your stuff.

Agreed. My premise is that a lot of people signed up for their program without reading the fine print. Careful that you agree to...

[biosurfer1]

Originally Posted by Z-man

This gives me pause when I consider installing a smart thermostat... Careful what you sign up for...



https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remotely-raised-smart-thermostats-temperatures-2021-6#:~:text=Texas%20power%20companies%20automaticall y%20raised,middle%20of%20a%20heat%20wave&text=Texas%20power%20companies%20remotely%20adjust ed,the%20temperature%20to%20save%20energy.

Two things. First, 78 isn't hot...talk about first world whining.

Second, they signed up for the program. Did they think the adjustments they agreed to would happen on cool, comfortable days? Sounds like they are too stupid to understand the program they signed up for.

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

Two things. First, 78 isn't hot...talk about first world whining.

Second, they signed up for the program. Did they think the adjustments they agreed to would happen on cool, comfortable days? Sounds like they are too stupid to understand the program they signed up for.

Time to get a good router with access control by device.
Oops, my wifi went out, so sorry you can’t mess with my thermostat.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Well in Texas, they asked us to raise our thermostats to prevent blown outs. So it’s not a liberal California thing. Our infrastructure sucks and Congress is playing games.

The Electrical grid is run by the local utilities and regulated by the STATE. It is not federal. Texas got themselves into the mess, they can figure it out by themselves. No feds need be involved.

[biosurfer1]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Time to get a good router with access control by device.
Oops, my wifi went out, so sorry you can’t mess with my thermostat.

So you think people should sign up for a voluntary program, take the incentives then manipulate the system so it doesn't work as intended?

How about just don't sign up for the program in the first place?

[vash]

i live here, and i havent heard anything besides the usual chatter.

we get phone alerts if anything is about to get exciting. they give us alerts that we are going to get alerts before anything shuts down. we go dark fully informed. i have yet to be surprised by a planned power down. unless a drunk runs into a pole or something, we have been okay.

the way i understand it, the heatwave has everyone sucking down the juice trying to stay cool. we get notifications and request to do laundry and run appliances in non-peak hours. same for charging cars. do it late at night.

usually the news about CA outside of CA is way better sounding. not sure what they mean by no wind. if anything there has been too much wind. it is crazy windy. every damn day. especially days i nose my kayak into the water. the wind is trying to drown me.

[wilnj]

Can we just move to nuclear power? Now? Please?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stevej37]

Free gereators for all residents.

[Aerkuld]

Just as vash said, no excitement here in CA. We got a email last week from the local power company suggesting we try limited our usage last Thursday during peak time, but we do that anyway. We use minimal power between 4pm and 9pm. I have our car chargers set to turn off during that peak rate window, and the car is normally charged by then anyway. Also, even on the rare hot days where we run AC, our home-solar still puts more energy back in to the grid than we take out.
There's a certain demographic that likes to try and score points and create sensationalist tripe who are far from knowledgeable about the reality. This is nothing like the problem people who don't live here think it is, or make it out to be. Realistically we've lost power once since we moved to the area in 2014. My power was out more often in Georgia and North Carolina!