Fed up with PG&E blackouts? Here’s how you can live off the grid in a California city

Is it time for California residents to get off the grid?

As if the massive power outages of the last month weren’t enough, utility giant PG&E this week said it expects to impose similar sweeping electricity blackouts for the next decade as the company hardens its power grid against wind-caused failures that cause wildfires. Gov. Gavin Newsom has angrily responded there’s no way he intends to let that happen.

While those two wage their high-stakes battle, California homeowners are scrambling for ways they can take power into their own hands.

One question that suddenly has traction: Is it feasible to get your home off the power-line grid entirely? If not, can homeowners generate power on their own property to at least operate main appliances when their electric company fails them, as PG&E has done across Northern California four times this month.

Energy experts say it is unlikely Northern California residents will be able to free themselves entirely from the state’s unreliable power grid system anytime soon, unless they are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on complicated retrofits.

But the shutdowns that have thrown millions into darkness have also thrown a spotlight on efforts in California to put more control into consumers’ hands.

That includes Sacramento developer Joaquin Rangel. He just finished building three houses on a property in the Curtis Park neighborhood that he calls Zero Net Energy buildings.

The houses each have $10,000 solar batteries made by Tesla that will allow residents to store solar energy via rooftop panels during the day, then use that energy via the battery to provide electricity in the evening. The larger of the three houses has two Tesla batteries.

Should there be an outage, the batteries can be used for a limited time to run basic appliances. The houses are still connected to the county’s electricity grid, but Rangel is billing the design as a first step toward homes that can run entirely on self-produced, self-contained energy.

“I really believe this is the answer,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want to be more self sufficient? I think it is the way we are going to have to go. We want to produce our own clean energy. We want to drive our electric cars and not be beholden to the power companies and oil companies.”

Tesla batteries, solar panels in CA homes

Large in-home batteries, like Rangel’s sleek white 13.5 kilowatt Tesla “power walls,” are at the heart of the movement. Some builders are now offering to include solar batteries as an add-on in new subdivisions, where the houses have rooftop solar arrays. Others are installing in-home systems that can add batteries later.

The cutting-edge Mill at Broadway project includes some structures with solar panels on the roofs and electrical conduit into the garage so home buyers can add a solar battery to help power their home or charge their electric vehicle.

Developer Kevin Smith said more builders will be prompted now to offer solar batteries as options in new homes, but most are not ready to include solar batteries as a standard appliance.

Energy experts and large-production housing builders say the batteries are too expensive and limited in storage capacity to be more than a niche energy option at the moment. But that will change.

“So far, the cost of batteries doesn’t pencil,” Smith said. “For a standard home or apartment, the technology isn’t quite there. I believe it will be, though. Fifteen years ago you’d say the same thing about solar.”

In case of a short outage of a few hours, the batteries will do well. But they don’t have the lasting power to provide consistent energy during the three- and four-day blackouts that PG&E has conducted.

The shock of this month’s PG&E power shutdowns may spur faster development of more powerful batteries, and more interest among builders and buyers. “The blackouts are a new twist,” said Sacramento-based energy consultant Garth Torvestad. “Builders may see a value they didn’t previously see.”

Some homeowners and builders already have been installing solar batteries, typically in garages, to help them better control their energy consumption. Utility companies have begun charging lower rates for energy during the day when the sun is out, and are then charging higher rates in the evening and after sunset. With the batteries in place, homeowners are able to draw stored energy from their battery in the evening instead of paying the utility company.

SMUD offers different energy rates

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has been among the most aggressive electricity providers in instituting “time of day” rate differentials. The rate some days between 5 and 8 p.m. is nearly three times as high as in the morning.

At the moment, though, event that rate differential is not high enough to allow most homeowners to recoup the substantial cost of buying and installing a solar battery.

Torvestad’s company ConSol, a Sacramento-based energy consultant, conducted a cost-benefit analysis this week for The Sacramento Bee, and determined that the average SMUD or PG&E customer likely will not achieve enough energy savings on their monthly bills over a 10-year period to compensate them for the cost of a battery.

Those calculations could change notably if SMUD, PG&E and other utility companies get more aggressive in their price differentials, Torvestad said.

In the short-term, some say the most feasible response to blackouts is low-tech and low-budget: Buy a portable generator.

Severin Borenstein of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, a leading California expert on energy production and delivery, is among Northern Californians who bought back-up generators or power inverters. The devices may cost anywhere from several hundred dollars to more than $1,000.

Borenstein used an inverter generator last week when PG&E shut power in Orinda for two days. He parked his car in the driveway, idled the motor and ran an extension cord into the house. He was able to keep his refrigerator cold through intermittent usage.

“It’s only 1000 watts, so no air conditioning, but you can keep your freezer cold and charge your phones,” he said.

Higher demand for generators, solar saves money

The blackouts prompted a run on generators at local home stores this month. Home Depot locations in Roseville and Placerville sold out of power generators immediately in early October when PG&E’s first shutdown was announced.

Joan Moore, 84, of Loomis, told The Bee she was desperately searching store to store for a device to aerate her new pond stocked with 1,000 fish. “It’s very serious,” Moore said as she hurried out the door at Home Depot to try the next store.

In an effort to make houses more energy efficient, California is about to make a major regulatory change that will prompt new home buyers to consider buying a solar battery for the garage. Starting on Jan. 1, 2020, a new California Energy Commission rule will require most new residences in the state to have rooftop solar panels, be part of a cluster of homes that share solar panels or participate in a commercial program that provides solar power to new homes.

The mandate does not apply to existing homes built prior to January.

The Energy Commission has calculated the new rooftop solar requirement will add $40 to the typical monthly 30-year mortgage payment, but it will save $80 on monthly heating, cooling and lighting bills by allowing homeowners to supplement grid electricity with their own rooftop-produced energy.

The new regulations do not require homes to include solar batteries. But energy experts and builders say the January mandate may make it more cost-effective to install one.

For their part, utility companies say they want to see more customers installing solar batteries. In Sacramento County, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District offers cash incentives to homeowners and to home construction companies to install solar batteries. SMUD officials say the more people with in-home batteries, the less SMUD will be required to deliver higher-cost and less-clean energy in the evening.

“SMUD is supportive of customers installing batteries,” said Deepak Aswani, a senior electrical engineer for research at SMUD. “It is an example of them taking charge of their energy usage. We like that and that is the message we want to send through time-of-day rates.”

That will help SMUD avoid getting hit with a glut of afternoon electricity sent back into its grid system on sunny days from residents with solar panels on their roofs. Instead, it allows residents to do what energy companies call “load shift,” storing and using afternoon energy later as evening electricity.

For Rangel, this year’s blackouts have only fueled his belief that major change is needed.

The three homes he built in Curtis Park are designed to be what is called Zero Net Energy, which means that occupants over the course of a year will produce as much energy as they consume. They will draw power from the grid at times, but compensate by sending clean power back to the grid system at other times, and by running off electricity stored in the big Tesla batteries attached to the side of each house.

Rangel said the effort has not been easy. He said he is trying to get the city of Sacramento to agree to trim branches on trees that block the sun from hitting some of his rooftop solar panels.

If this project goes well, he hopes to build an 11-unit zero net energy apartment complex in Oak Park, with at least one battery per unit.

Torvestad of the Sacramento energy consultancy ConSol, who supports Rangel’s pioneering effort, nevertheless said he suspects most homeowners are likely to wait and see.

“No one gets exactly where this is all going right now,” he said. “It is tough to have that crystal ball.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2019 at 5:30 AM.