Pacific Gas & Electric power outage in Northern CA affecting your reef tank?

[X-37B]

Im glad your not affected but I am surprised. PG&E is just looking for the smallest excuse

I am on REU. Pge is only for gas but you are right.

 

[MnFish1]

And now there is a large fire where they didnt put the power off saying' we didnt want a backlash'... Unbelievable

 

[tehmadreefer]

We also have schools that teach students how to spell correctly.

FWIW, I grew up in the southeast and when I moved to California, my pay tripled and my taxes decreased by about half. But believe whatever you want. I’m sure life is way better wherever it is that you live.

It always surprises me that when California suffers a natural disaster, there are people here on R2R ready to bash their fellow Americans instead of offering help and sympathy.

Exactly.

 

[Eye H8 Empty V]

I’m in SoCal (Ventura County) and we’re experiencing 55mph wings right now. I haven’t heard of any planned outages yet.

My tank isn’t up yet but I have a 2000va UPS when I’m ready. It should ruy whole system for about 6 hours without a hiccup. The UPS also had a monitored 12 outlet PDU. So I’ll get a notification when the power goes out. My “ TV Room” also has 2 UPS’s each with 3 additional batteries. I’ll still have TV, full 7.2 Audio, Internet, WiFi and my Crestron control system running as well. Major appliances are on house power so we’ll lose those.

One of these days I’ll get my 82” TV

 

[Eye H8 Empty V]

Do any generators have the ability to sense when the outage happens and kick on itself so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to turn it on? I guess you’d still have to switch over all the plugs unless you could hook it up to your panel to power your whole house.

They do but unless you have a double conversion UPS you’ll get a massive energy spike that could potentially fry sensitive electronics. With computers RAM is usually the first victim.

 

[Eye H8 Empty V]

With the wildfires we had the last 2 years I’m glad Edison is finally putting in some preemptive precautions. I know a few people that lost their houses and didn’t have enough $/sq foot coverage to rebuild.

 

[RandyC]

My powerless journey has ended. I clocked around 19.5 hours of outage. All tanks look healthy.

 

[Stoney]

My powerless journey has ended. I clocked around 19.5 hours of outage. All tanks look healthy.

So they still got you in the end huh? Glad to hear it's over. Very nice tanks btw, just saw your thread.

 

[hatfielj]

I'm waiting for other manufactures to get on board with the power cells. I do not support Tesla (no disrespect to those that do). I think they are a pretty good idea if the business sizes solar generation properly. Home owners still need to use energy smart as well as design both home energy use and again solar generation to make them worth while. Solar panel efficiency still isn't up to low earth orbit / space station generation yet with what, most consumer panels 18 - 23%? Again, this is just consumer grade / affordable.

Why do consumer panels needs to be ultra efficient for you to use them? If you have the roof space, panels don't need to be super dense. All you'd be doing is spending a lot more for panels. Solar is very much worth it right now. With most systems, especially those in places with high electricity costs, the equipment can pay for itself in very little time. You'll be waiting a long time for NASA quality solar panels to arrive...may never happen because there's no good reason for it.

I will say that batteries definitely need to come down in price for them to make sense for most people from an economic standpoint. But, I don't care purely about the economics of using back up batteries. I like knowing I can generate and store my own solar power and use it to power my house when the sun goes down. It's definitely the future and I like supporting the technology now.

 

[hatfielj]

I also heard that solar panels cant be wired to power your house directly, so the batteries are required for any utility at all. Just seems like solar isn't enough on it's own, especially for extended outages like this one. IMO If I have to get a generator anyways, then I might as well just get the generator since it's the only solution that covers all scenarios.

Solar by itself can offset the cost of your electricity, but it can't store the power to use during power outages. You'd need either batteries or a generator for that. Generators are the cheaper route to go if you want power during an outage, but they aren't environmentally friendly (they burn gas like crazy), they require yearly maintenance and periodic running just like a car to make sure they work well. Additionally, you're still relying on a utility company to deliver the gas to power it (which may not be dependable during an outage like this either). Batteries are a set it and forget it solution and they burn no fossil fuel. They are 100% independent of the utility company. Their major downside is cost. This will get better with time though.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Forgot to ask, @Dkeller_nc did you need to monitor and manually dose alk or is there pretty much no consumption without lights?

I've not worried about this during one of the hurricane/ice-storm induced power outages. Too many other things on my mind if you know what I mean.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

For those considering a solar generation option for reef power back-up, you may be interested in this calculator. It doesn't tell you all of the information you'd want to know, such as the total capacity you'd require for your particular power needs, but it does give you an idea of how many total hours of sunlight you could convert to electricity for your particular house and weather conditions.

While a discussion of the environmental implications of a solar panel system versus a generator is somewhat off-topic for this particular subject, it may be worth noting that all power generation systems do have an environmental impact. For renewables such as solar and wind, the environmental impact is largely an up-front issue, as the mining of the materials and manufacturing of the panels and (especially) the batteries have a substantial footprint. For a generator, most of the environmental effects are on-going from the consumption of fuel.

Overall, and from a purely environmental point of view, whether a solar generation system is more environmentally costly than a generator rather sensitively depends on the size of the installation and how frequently the system is used. This is quite unlike power generation on an on-going basis used for everyday consumption.

Because of the considerably larger up-front cost of a solar generation system, I'd be considering spending the extra $$ necessary to install the electrical equipment so that the solar panels offset normal household electrical usage.

 

[User1]

Why do consumer panels needs to be ultra efficient for you to use them? If you have the roof space, panels don't need to be super dense. All you'd be doing is spending a lot more for panels. Solar is very much worth it right now. With most systems, especially those in places with high electricity costs, the equipment can pay for itself in very little time. You'll be waiting a long time for NASA quality solar panels to arrive...may never happen because there's no good reason for it.

I will say that batteries definitely need to come down in price for them to make sense for most people from an economic standpoint. But, I don't care purely about the economics of using back up batteries. I like knowing I can generate and store my own solar power and use it to power my house when the sun goes down. It's definitely the future and I like supporting the technology now.

Space mostly. Cost would be a close secondary. In the area I live (outside Sacramento) I believe our generation window or hours per day is 3 hours low to a high of 6 hours. If I have efficient panels then I can generate more to save in the batteries for later use.

I'm not positive in generation although some summer days we do generate more than we use. However, I've not done my part yet by really focusing on energy wasters in the house to see how much that would help.

I could be looking at it wrong though or misunderstanding of panel efficiency, etc.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Just about to hit hour 56 without power here in the norcal foothills. Honda 2kw genny is keeping the reef tank pump and heater going. Thankfully it has enough juice to fire up the coffee maker too. Ready for this outage to be over.

 

[User1]

Just about to hit hour 56 without power here in the norcal foothills. Honda 2kw genny is keeping the reef tank pump and heater going. Thankfully it has enough juice to fire up the coffee maker too. Ready for this outage to be over.

56 hours? What did PG&E say about food spoilage?

I only am asking because as part of the claim I'm filing with our power company, SMUD, I included it. I know this is a planned event but was just wondering how that would work. Food isn't cheap.

 

[FactoryKTMmotocross46]

Im glad your not affected but I am surprised. PG&E is just looking for the smallest excuse

11 billion dollars paid and 86 dead is not a small excuse.

 

[X-37B]

Juynygrmm4tYfeettigmofeuehy5stjeehygggggg54

 

[Dave Cureton]

Power came back on a couple hours ago. Everything is alive and well!

 

[Steve Elb]

Is anyone in here having power outage due to Pacific Gas & Electric shutting down electrical power as a precaution to wild fires? Any back up plans for your aquarium?
I guess Ecotech battery back up and generators are needed at this time.

Got a generator but didn't have to use it this time. Power was out on both sides of our neighborhood in Santa Cruz. We lucked out! Regarding generators a 400 dollar investment for a generator is not a big deal when you think about the cost of the fish and corals and the potential for loss. Imo it's money well spent

 

[flyline]

Just an idea but you can get a car battery and buy a inverter for not too much and use that in a pinch