By Susannah Churchill | San Francisco Chronicle
Forced power outages are not the right long-term solution for people who rely on powered medical devices, critical facilities like fire stations and hospitals, and our everyday connected lives. This week’s “public safety power shut-offs” for 800,000 California customers are a stark reminder of the new normal we cannot allow ourselves to quietly accept.
Instead, California must focus on long-term solutions that prevent fires and keep the lights on for more California families.
“Rather than simply shutting off power to a million people to avoid fires, it is time to dramatically reimagine how our electric grid works. Whether it’s for fighting fires or giving people cheaper, cleaner, and more competitive options for electricity, the grid needs to transition to a decentralized model. If anything, this absurd situation has taught us that centralized monopoly utilities are not the way forward and microgrids, distributed solar, and battery storage are the future.”
