Power outages should be a thing of the past.
On July 28, Southern California Edison scheduled a nighttime outage for 878 Palm Desert customers. It was about 110 degrees that day, and the low was in the 80s.
After residents, the city, and local media raised the issue, SCE rescheduled the work to August. That’s right, August.
Power outages in our brutal desert heat aren’t mere inconveniences. They are threats to life and safety.
That’s why at our Sept. 10 meeting, my Palm Desert City Council colleagues and I considered a resolution calling on SCE to work with the City and its residents to avoid summer outages when possible, and to provide notice and resources when it’s not. We tabled the item to November so the City and SCE can keep working on scheduling
and communication.
The need for better communication and coordination dominated our discussion. The underlying assumption still seemed to be that outages are a necessary part of modern life, and that the best we can do is manage them better.
I want to challenge that assumption.
Several years ago, my neighborhood sustained an extended outage. My family fled to nearby relatives who still had power. We decided to introduce my kids to "Back to the Future Part II." In it, Marty McFly travels from 1985 to 2015 and finds flying cars. It occurred to me that we were living in the future. And we had no power.
No sci-fi film I’ve seen imagines a thriving city of the future that runs out of power. They imagine clean, safe cities of beauty and abundant energy.
What went wrong? Why do we accept that in our modern day, power outages are necessary?
It’s not that we lack the technology. It’s not that we lack the engineering. We can design and build a modern grid that would make outages almost non-existent.
Why haven’t we done it?
Will and fiscal mismanagement are my hypotheses.
We have no problem paying for things we can’t afford. The federal government now carries more than $40 trillion in debt. And don’t get me started on the billions California has squandered on homelessness. We spend. We just don’t spend on the boring basics — like keeping the lights on.
New, higher SCE rates are trying to catch up with years of underinvestment. No one wants higher rates, but this is a start. And we must hold SCE accountable to deliver the promised grid hardening.
We must also show will.
The will to accept new power generation and storage. The will to endure road construction to install redundant feeds, so one maintenance job does not darken 878 customers. The will to reduce the regulatory burdens that stand between us and the thriving city of the future.
As an elected official, I only want a few things. I want a safe, clean city, and I want to keep the lights on. With will and competence, we can get there.
Let’s make power outages a thing of the past.
Joe Pradetto represents District 2 on the Palm Desert City Council. Reach him at jpradetto@palmdesert.gov.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: We could end power outages in Coachella Valley
