California tests off-the-grid solutions to power outages

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When a wildfire tore through Briceburg nearly two years ago, the tiny community on the edge of Yosemite National Park lost the only power line connecting it to the electrical grid.

Rather than rebuilding poles and wires over increasingly dry hillsides, which could raise the risk of equipment igniting catastrophic fires, the nation’s largest utility decided to give Briceburg a self-reliant power system.

The stand-alone grid made of solar panels, batteries and a backup generator began operating this month. It's the first of potentially hundreds of its kind as Pacific Gas & Electric works to prevent another deadly fire like the one that forced it to file for bankruptcy in 2019.

The ramping up of this technology is among a number of strategies to improve energy resilience in California as a cycle of extreme heat, drought and wildfires hammers the U.S. West, triggering massive blackouts and threatening the power supply in the country’s most populous state. Other tactics include raising the cost of electricity during high-demand hours — when it’s most expensive to provide it — and offering cash and prizes to conserve energy when the grid is strained.

“I don’t think anyone in the world anticipated how quickly the changes brought on by climate change would manifest. We’re all scrambling to deal with that,” said Peter Lehman, the founding director of the Schatz Energy Research Center, a clean energy institute in Arcata.

The response follows widespread blackouts in California in the past two years that exposed the power grid's vulnerability to weather. Fierce windstorms led utilities to deliberately shut off power to large swaths of the state to keep high-voltage transmission lines from sparking fire. Then last summer, an oppressive heat wave triggered...