California public safety power shutdowns

Thu Oct 10 06:02:59 UTC 2019

Radu,

The fire risk is from electrical transmission lines, not from end users of electrical power. The underlying problem is that the State’s rules for line separation were ill-considered, making it possible for high-enough winds to cause “line slapping” and the resultant arcing that ignite fires. 

There is no reason to think that end users are of any particular risk, and fuel delivery during a preemptive outage wouldn’t be impaired, because roads will remain open. So, nobody need pretend anything. It’s just business as usual, until a fire actually starts.

 -mel 

> On Oct 9, 2019, at 10:52 PM, Radu-Adrian Feurdean <nanog at radu-adrian.feurdean.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, at 22:26, Sean Donelan wrote:
>> 
>> - Will this affect cellphone service?
>> 
>> Generally no because this is a power shutoff, without other disaster 
>> damage.  All major switching offices have backup generators for 24 
>> to 72 hours and nearly all cell towers and outside plant have backup 
>> batteries for 4 to 8 hours and/or backup generators.  Service providers 
>> should be able to re-charge batteries and refill generator tanks 
>> throughout the power shut-off.  Of course, if there is some other disaster 
>> during this time, there would be less resiliance in the network.
> 
> In a Previous e-mail:
> 
>> Public Safety Power Shut-offs (PSPS) in California wildfire high-risk areas.
> 
> So, during a Power shut-off because of wild*fire* risk, operators are supposed to be able to re-charge batteries and supply generators with fuel (I suppose diesel, regular gas being even worse) in the affected areas ? Did I understand things wrong ?
> 
> I don't have an issue with shutting down power preventively in order to reduce an already high risk, but pretending that other people will keep their electricity-dependent equipment up, especially by providing flamable stuff - isn't this a huge WTF ?