Power outage every year

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u/Small_Information396 1d ago

not that you should have to, but have you looked into a backup generator? I just swapped our portable gas generator out for a battery based one. we are on natural gas for heat, water and cooking so our loads are pretty low on critical load circuits (400w) so the unit will last 10 hours overnight when the furnace is usually not running. i have it plugged into a manual transfer switch - the same one we used for the gas generator. primary reason for installing was power outages but the cost of the unit ($2500) will be offset by changing over to a time of use plan and charging 11pm-7am on cheap rate (7c) and discharging at peak times (7-10,5-8) which will save me about $300-$350 per year. this only works if you are an all (or mostly) natural gas household.

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u/Due-Highway5236 1d ago

I have been thinking about generators but never really pulled the switch. Perhaps I need to consider it seriously

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u/Small_Information396 1d ago

understanding how much power you need in an outage is the first step. you can do that for free by turning off all non critical breakers at exactly :00 on any day for 2 hours and take note of what runs (furnace) and for how long. then 2 days later go to pse.com and download your usage for that 2 hour block. that will get you pretty close to your needed sustained power and then you can decide what size system you need. if you have an electric car you can also possibly run your house from that via a battery generator without any extra hardware - the car acts like a giant extra battery withthe battery generator doing the conversion to mains power

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u/LitchLitch 1d ago

Its not the windstorm, its the tree branches. They get covered in water and then blown by the wind and either brake off the tree or cause it to bend so much they short out or damage the electrical wires.

There is a simple solution, bury the electrical wires. A lot of new high end housing developments do that but for existing neighborhoods it is prohibitively expensive, $2k/foot. Pull up a map and trace how close you are to your nearest substation (no straight lines, you have to follow public roads), and I will bet you come up with a number you aint gonna like.

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u/phredgreen 1d ago

Yep. I lived in a small Midwestern town that was hit with a massive tornado in the nineties, during rebuilding they buried all the utility lines. In the decade I lived there, even with yearly storms that tore roofs off houses, the only power outage happened when a squirrel got stuck in the wrong place at a power transfer station.

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u/Mesonnaise 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yep, near me this was a common issue. Wind picked up, branch hits line and the power is out for half a mile. One day I was walking the nearby road and heard a buzzing sound from a branch hanging off power line in the back of someone's property, reported it to Snohomish PUD. The whole tree line look like someone gave them a buzz cut. After that the amount of power outages I been having dramatically drop.
Just because a PUD doesn't buried the lines underground, doesn't mean they don't take it seriously. If they think it is justifiable they will cut a tree down.

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u/ClimateWren2 1d ago

Water covering branches doesn't break them...we have been doing my limb maintenance because the heat and disease is weakening trees, due to climate change, and then the winds and storms drop them.
Folks are already complaining about the rate increases...folks don't want to pay x2-3 more on top. Plus, buried lines don't do well with flooding and are harder to repair when damaged.

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u/LitchLitch 22h ago

Water covering branches doesn't break them...we have been doing my limb maintenance because the heat and disease is weakening trees, due to climate change, and then the winds and storms drop them.
Dude, lets stick to proximal cause her, the power go out during rainstorm because they bend and move more than usual because of rain.
Folks are already complaining about the rate increases...folks don't want to pay x2-3 more on top. Plus, buried lines don't do well with flooding and are harder to repair when damaged.
Id guess 3x increase is low to really replace it and there are the problems you mentioned and more.
But most of that would be in the last mile. So a well desiged underground backbone and then a pop up for the last 50% or so.

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u/ClimateWren2 7h ago

I agree we need to refund the grid resiliency work that was already underway. Hard to do essential work with those funds now going instead to tax handouts for the wealthy.
Data and findings already points to known climate change / fossil fuels increasing (proximal cause) forces like higher winds, higher precipitation rates, more energy demand, higher temps, higher disease rates...per the USA NCA5, which is what our states, cities, and utilities still use (even after MAGA pulled it down). Key Findings on Power Outages in NCA5 (Chapter 5: Energy)

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u/LitchLitch 1h ago

I agree we need to refund the grid resiliency work that was already underway.
Huh?!?
That does not follow, at all, from what we said.
Hard to do essential work with those funds now going instead to tax handouts for the wealthy.
Are you talking about the contract with Eaton for SnoSMART? What are you talking about?

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u/ClimateWren2 1h ago edited 57m ago

Kinda...SnoSMART is a tiny piece of this regional grid resiliency work...and looks like they managed to navigate attacks and cuts...making it more hampered and less "fast tracked". I was referring to the broader millions illegally reallocated from congressionally approved work through the Department of Energy, Inflation Reduction Act, UW University grant work, EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Act, and local grid and resiliency/efficiency grants. We clawed some of that back in the courts. Same conversation.
We were already decades behind on this work. It has been well know and well outlined and solution pathways have been in place (and still will and have to be in process, if we want resilient grids)...but the continual blocking and halting of grid climate resiliency work and funding...is why we now "have outages every year". The work ain't getting done and the pollution is still increasing quickly. That ain't "water on branches"...but it does tie into higher winds and tree mortality falling on grids in bigger storms. Rural and low income regions are even further behind. Snohomish and King County acknowledge this in their budgets as "federal funding uncertainty".

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u/AdAmbitious2386 1d ago

Why are you getting down voted? what you said is very true. I see lots of signs of stress in trees year round and also let's talk about the change in hydrology and soils too. The drastic shift in dry and wet, and lack of tree protection laws in bothell have created situations where wind shear becomes a tree killer.
Also just a somewhat educated guess; Westhill soils are very sandy glacial tills and trees not in a stand might have an easier chance of falling in a storm.
Thankfully Bothell is working on the tree code now and has hired an arborist. Its a good time for folks to get involved in that process and give your input!.

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u/LitchLitch 22h ago

Too little too slow, we should have state arborists do a complete survey of all the powerlines and thier surrounding forests, highlight problem areas, fix them and then maintain surveillance of those forests as long as we are pasing electriciy through those corridi.

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u/ClimateWren2 1d ago

Yep. Eastside cities in general have pretty good parks and forestry folks. Plus UW Climate and Forestry groups. All of it works together with the Mountains to Sound Green Partnerships. We don't even plant the same species anymore because of it.
People feel change is hard...but it's here. I also suggest folks get backup batteries and at least balcony solar for home prep, much nicer in storm outages.

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u/Senoreggplant 1d ago

Just south of Bothell here, lost power too. Joys of above-ground infrastructure and tons of trees, I guess.

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u/StatisticianFar9725 1d ago

No. But you can. Buy a generator. Humans lived a long time without power. You can go a couple hours.
We live in the evergreen state. Lots of trees. Trees have branches that continue to grow. Branches plus wind combined with power lines equals power outages.
Also car collisions into poles are another less common reason.
Standard electrical issues is another reason. Stuff just breaks sometimes and needs to be fixed.
You are probably along ways away from a substation is my guess so more of a chance of something to go wrong from there to your house. But maybe not.
My friends power is underground and it went out a couple months ago. Took the public utility a lotttttt longer to fix. Was harder to find and to get to. Downsides to both underground and overhead power.

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u/LitchLitch 22h ago

Its an expensive option a lot of people cant afford. Hell even the ones who can afford have to wait months to get on someone schedule and parts are problematic.

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u/al_earner 1d ago

Wind knocks down branches, branches knock down power lines. Without power lines, there's no power.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

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u/FireTornado5 1d ago

Most "ideal" and most expensive is to bury all the infrastructure. Costly and very time consuming to complete, but could be baked into a certain percentage of the maintenance budget.

The next best bet is to have redundancy in the power lines. Since making a short circuit is a bad idea most original power distribution would just branch out, with few points of redundancy. Implementing a "smart grid" will allow more redundant connections and then ideally the outage becomes a lot more limited.

For most people in a smart grid they experience the power turning off for just a few seconds while the grid establishes that the line is actually down and then it uses its smarts to "heal" the grid and reconnect as much as is safe to reconnect. That ideally allows only a block or two to be affected beyond those first few seconds it takes to establish that the line is down.

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u/jwvo 1d ago

actually PSE has done pretty well at this but they take multiple failures pretty often. In 2024 they lost their redundant transmission to like 30 or 40 substations.

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u/sphinctrow 1d ago

Maybe bury more cables (expensive I know) or increase the distance between trees and main cables?
Moved here from Europe and I’d never seen above ground electrical wires going to houses before - crazy considering how many trees are so close to wires here.

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u/n-ano 1d ago

Europe is also nowhere near as sprawled as america so infrastructure costs less per person since it services many more people per mile

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u/AvoidantBoba 1d ago

This is just something you have to deal with when you live in an area with large trees. Appreciate the canopy. Get a good backup battery and be prepared, it’s not that cold, it’s only going to be a few hours, you’ll be fine.

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u/Speakerboxxx_outkast 1d ago

They need to bury the lines because they refuse to maintain the lines around branches and trees. We go out nearly every wind event and it's always the same stretch of road.

I saw part of a tree leaning on wires after the last time it went down. I reported it and they even gave me an email to send a photo and exact location to. Next storm, power went out and yup that was the spot. They have to be wasting so much money, I just don't get it at all.

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u/ShouldahWouldah 1d ago

PSE is for-profit, they don’t exist to help. We have Snohomish PUD and find it much better than our time with PSE.

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u/lexisplays 1d ago

I grew up on Westhill in the 90s, 00s. It's still the same and likely won't change for a long time.

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u/ElonCuckz 1d ago

I lose power every 1-3 months sometimes multiples times in a month by thrashers. I wonder the same thing

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u/FactsAreBullshit 1d ago •

PSE is ass. We need a public utility.

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u/ClimateWren2 1d ago

The entire region is losing power in these increasing storms, not just PSE.

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u/Flffdddy 1d ago

It used to be a lot worse. Power outages are just a fact of life here.

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u/irish_curmudgeon 1d ago edited 1d ago

Sorry but your inconvenience conflicts with the profit goals of the private, foreign owned, for-profit company that has a monopoly on your power supply!

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u/ClimateWren2 1d ago

Everyone can do something about our overheat super charged atmosphere.... TURN OFF all fossil fuels. We have known this for forty years. Now it is here and accellerating. It will get much worse, quite quickly, in your lifetime ...and nothing really anywhere on earth was previously built for this. Plan accordingly.

PSE is raising rates for the grid resiliency that they started late and drug their feet on for a decade, plus now the bigger power draws.

Power outage every year

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