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As California Burns, Customers Flock to Batteries and Solar
Power outages in the fire-prone state could mean big business for rooftop solar and storage systems
Last week, large swaths of northern California went dark as the state’s largest utility cut power to hundreds of thousands of its customers. It was Pacific Gas & Electric’s third deliberate outage in two months — part of the company’s efforts to keep its aging transmission lines from sparking blazes when conditions are ripe for wildfires — and the largest blackout to date: An estimated 2.5 million people were affected.
The outages were short-lived, but they certainly won’t be the last. Climate change is making dangerous fire conditions the norm in California, and “de-energizing,” as power outages are referred to, has become a part of every major utility’s fire mitigation plan, called for by California lawmakers after some of the state’s most devastating fires in recent years were linked to malfunctioning PG&E equipment — including 2018’s deadly Camp Fire.
The blackouts are meant to be a stopgap measure while the utilities upgrade equipment and clear vegetation around power lines, but these mitigation efforts are expected to take years and billions of dollars to complete.
In the meantime, PG&E is “encouraging customers to be prepared for public safety power shutoffs in the event of a dry wind event like we’re experiencing right now. That includes, if applicable, having a generator, having a plan, and being prepared to go without power for at least 48 hours, if not more,” PG&E spokesperson Melissa Subbotin told OneZero. “PG&E has a plan, we want our customers to have a plan.”
But there’s another option, one that the utility has spent years lobbying against in the state: rooftop solar and storage.
“I just think the future is in more homes having backup systems and solar power to create enough self-sustainability for when they are going to have to be off the grid.”
“We’ve been a longtime supporter of solar,” PG&E spokesperson Denny Boyles told OneZero. “We don’t sell it or install it, but we work with…
