Warning: PG&E on the warpath

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Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
I appreciate your position, but that doesn't help your customer. What do they have, 2 rooms, one for the parents and one for the kids? Quick look at the Bay Area and it's probably $150/night with all fees and taxes, so $300 x 14 = $4,200. Unless they have a suite with a kitchen, they're eating out. Mom, dad, 2 kids is easily $40 per meal if not more, so $40 x 3 x 14 = $1,680 for a grand total of $5,880. Six grand because PG&E can't get off their duffs and do their job.

Hindsight is 20/20, but a generator rental with a temp cord and an interlock kit probably would have been cheaper had a person known they were going to drag their butts this long to
get it connected.

I still can't believe they've been without power for 14 days. That's what I'd expect in a third world country, not California.
 

winnie

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MA, USA
Occupation
Electric motor research
Hindsight is 20/20, but a generator rental with a temp cord and an interlock kit probably would have been cheaper had a person known they were going to drag their butts this long to
get it connected.

Heck, at Bay Area hotel rates it would be cheaper to install off grid solar or install a permanent backup generator...or simply go on a vacation....

-Jon
 

Ponchik

Senior Member
Location
CA
Occupation
Electronologist
But somebody has to stand up to these S$%^& heads.

It seems like the more legit you are the more you get screwed by the government and by big corporations.
 

norcal

Senior Member
Hindsight is 20/20, but a generator rental with a temp cord and an interlock kit probably would have been cheaper had a person known they were going to drag their butts this long to
get it connected.

I still can't believe they've been without power for 14 days. That's what I'd expect in a third world country, not California.

If it was a diesel genny, might get a fine from CARB, California Air Resources Board, they were trained by Himmler's underlings. :(
 

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
It's disconnected at the service head. Because PG&E has already flagged the account as being disconnected, and because the smart meter would immediately alert them that power has been re-connected, we can't re-connect without further major ramifications.

Are you speaking from past experience regarding 'major ramifications'? For sure I've had some wink-wink-nod-nod types of conversations where the service planner nearly told me to have our electrician to disconnect and reconnect it. That is, he came as close as he could to telling me that, without actually telling me that. For sure they are trying to put on the risk and liability on contractors and cut their own costs. But I don't know if avoiding that is worth the risk of customer ire on the other end, job after job.

Anyway good luck, I believe I was lucky to avoid a similar situation a few weeks ago...
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
Hindsight is 20/20, but a generator rental with a temp cord and an interlock kit probably would have been cheaper had a person known they were going to drag their butts this long to
get it connected.

I still can't believe they've been without power for 14 days. That's what I'd expect in a third world country, not California.

according to believers of net metering, a bill credit for 14 days computed from billing history should be a fair and just resolution :lol:
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
After reading posts here on this site over the years, I am beginning to think that Consumers Energy is the best POCO in the country. We don't have to put up with any of the malarkey being discussed here. Consumers is prompt, professional, easy to work with and our rates are among the lowest in the country. It's only a very rare day that we don't get a reconnect within minutes or hours of getting our sticker. The inspector that issued the sticker usually calls the POCO for us, too.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
After reading posts here on this site over the years, I am beginning to think that Consumers Energy is the best POCO in the country. We don't have to put up with any of the malarkey being discussed here. Consumers is prompt, professional, easy to work with and our rates are among the lowest in the country. It's only a very rare day that we don't get a reconnect within minutes or hours of getting our sticker. The inspector that issued the sticker usually calls the POCO for us, too.
We don't need inspector approval as a general rule before a service can be energized, just proof a permit was filed. Name of POCO is entered on permits for new service and that POCO is automatically sent a notification of the permit, about the only way you can go wrong is to enter the wrong POCO on the application.
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
After reading posts here on this site over the years, I am beginning to think that Consumers Energy is the best POCO in the country. We don't have to put up with any of the malarkey being discussed here. Consumers is prompt, professional, easy to work with and our rates are among the lowest in the country. It's only a very rare day that we don't get a reconnect within minutes or hours of getting our sticker. The inspector that issued the sticker usually calls the POCO for us, too.

Sounds ideal. National Grid has a pretty liberal hands off policy as I've already discussed, but we are in the top 10 for rates. Their customer service is not the greatest either. Not quite PG&E bad, but pretty much all over the map.
 

tortuga

Code Historian
Location
Oregon
Occupation
Electrical Design
Customer got connected 2pm yesterday. Over two weeks wo power
Finally! Up in Oregon we had this problem too until the State legislated that a master electrician (known as a Supervising Electrician in Oregon) may issue a letter taking responsibility for the install to get power reconnected in certain situations like this. Probably after enough electricians complained about PG&E. The electrician is required to deliver the certain letter to the local Jurisdiction, POCO and property owner etc and have it inspected the next business day etc etc.
Might be a good law to propose for California.

https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/479.570
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_900/oar_918/918_311.html
 

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Finally! Up in Oregon we had this problem too until the State legislated that a master electrician (known as a Supervising Electrician in Oregon) may issue a letter taking responsibility for the install to get power reconnected in certain situations like this. Probably after enough electricians complained about PG&E. The electrician is required to deliver the certain letter to the local Jurisdiction, POCO and property owner etc and have it inspected the next business day etc etc.
Might be a good law to propose for California.

https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/479.570
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_900/oar_918/918_311.html

Yup. It just makes sense. Customer owns one side of the service point. Utility owns the other. Either side (qualified professional on behalf of the customer of course) should be able to take responsibility for connecting it up.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
Yup. It just makes sense. Customer owns one side of the service point. Utility owns the other. Either side (qualified professional on behalf of the customer of course) should be able to take responsibility for connecting it up.

In Michigan it's a little more convoluted than that. For instance, for overhead:

POCO owns triplex AND connectors

Customer owns cable and mast that connects to the hub on the top of the meter socket.

POCO owns hub, socket and meter.

Customer owns cable from meter socket to panel, and the rest from there.

Everything I listed as POCO owned, they provide, free of charge, with the exception of the connectors to the triplex. One of their rules is that they are supposed to be the only ones putting them on, and they have to be provided by the POCO. POCO won't give them out to customers like they do the rest of the stuff.
 
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