Stanford University, the intellectual core of Silicon Valley, is struggling with something fundamental: electricity.
Why does it take so long?
Normally, Stanford powered its campus with 100% renewable energy, a milestone it achieved this year. Most of them are solar energy.
But only a small fraction of solar energy – less than 10 percent, according to Stanford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Mark Jacobson – is on campus, on the roofs of buildings. The rest comes from two massive solar power plants in Kern and Kings counties.
Because energy is not produced directly on campus, Stanford relies on the state electricity grid to transport electricity. In other words, Jacobson said, there is no direct power from solar power plants to campus.
So “if there is a network outage, the university will also be affected,” he said.
Stanford was able to turn on a small power supply. It uses several hundred diesel generators for key services, Jacobson said.
PG&E also managed to send some power to campus, albeit not enough to fully open the university. Two transmission lines power the campus, and PG&E said it unplugged one due to the fire.
Cal Fire is currently not allowing PG&E access to equipment near the fire where repairs are needed, the company said, but as soon as those restrictions are removed, workers will enter.
“We understand how destructive it is to be without power and use every tool we have to restore power as quickly as possible,” said PG&E.
Stanford spokesman EJ Miranda said that as of mid-Thursday afternoon, the university had not received an estimated time for a full power recovery from PG&E.
Apart from the Stanford campus, only a small number of homes or businesses were without electricity at 3pm on Thursday – nine in Woodside, three in Redwood City and one in Belmont.
Repairing a transmission line is a “delicate job,” said Michael Vara, an energy expert at the Stanford Institute for the Environment in Woods. “The standards are very precise on how things should be done, so it takes time.”
Vara said he would be even more concerned if the PG&E substation was damaged at the edge of the fire, as parts of the substation could be difficult to replace.
In a complaint to the California Utilities Commission, PG&E said Cal Fire had collected equipment from one of its distribution chains near the Edgewood Incident fire.
“PG&E’s most important responsibility is the safety of our customers and the hometowns we serve,” the company said in a statement, adding that it was grateful to the first responders.
Vara said that the era of forest fires shows the importance of new thinking for the network – especially how to get energy somewhere through multiple routes, as well as self-sufficiency, although this can be expensive.
Jacobson said the long-term outage indicates the need for more batteries to store energy – and micro-networks that can remain powered by batteries when the mains is down. Some plans are being developed at Stanford, but he said he believes things need to move faster.
“The university should be a shining example of how to move to fully clean, renewable energy,” Jacobson said. “It simply came to our notice then. These climatic emergencies are happening faster and faster. “
Kate Galbraith is a full-time writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: kgalbraith@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kategalbraith
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