written 21 September, 2025
published 28 September, 2025
Two weeks ago, I described the impending change to our existing electrical system, and last week I described hardware installations that could make Ukiah power usage more economical during normal operations. This week will consider Ukiah becoming power resilient in the face of grid unreliability.
A home power system can be built to function completely disconnected from the grid, as the few people making energy consumption decisions can reach consensus and adjust power demands to the reality of the power system limitations. A community supports a greater per capita load, making it more difficult to be off grid. People and the economy have grown up in an era where power has always been available and relatively affordable, so being thrifty with power has never been much of a social value. Even though Ukiah is a relatively small city, consensus on power usage is probably impossible.
But the growing climate reality, increasing fossil fuel costs, and the rapidly expanding power demand driven by AI, are changing the power landscape, making it more questionable if power will always be available, or affordable even when it is. It is prudent to consider making investments now, while we still can, to be able to thrive through more power uncertain times.
In a power emergency, the full normal load won't be supported, so a backup system must supply the most critical loads. Some business and facilities have begun to prepare, and have installed backup power systems. But these are usually fossil fuel based, which are only cost effective in short term thinking. Combustion of fossil fuels is part of what is driving the increasing power uncertainty. Fossil fueled backup systems are sunk costs, sitting around unused most of the time, have limited power capacity without refueling, and can fail when needed. With few exceptions, these backup power systems are for exclusive benefit, not really designed to support the whole community.
Community oriented backup power has to look at needs of the whole society. This includes basic City functions, such as sewer and water service, emergency communications, fire and police, and City administration. Key social functions include supermarkets and restaurants, financial centers, social services, radio stations, hospitals and clinics, cooling centers, telecommunications, gas stations and EV chargers, and evacuation centers. Within the general public, some have critical health support systems requiring constant electricity, and everyone needs some power for refrigeration, lights, and communication.
An ideal backup system should be able to function all the time, helping pay for itself by carrying part of the normal load. With constant usage, any difficulties will show up and be repaired before the situation becomes critical. However, the system must be able to stand alone when needed. Long term power resilience requires the ability to collect power on site, or be recharged with power collected locally. Emergencies can easily last for weeks. If the impact is widespread, we in the more rural areas will be low on the list for outside response.
Building resilient systems for specific facilities is much easier than building resilience for every home, which are all wired differently. This requires design and labor to add storage and rewire the home so that only critical circuits are energized when needed. Every homeowner will have a different idea about what is critical for them. An equitable power system would allocate the same share of power to each home, or each person, allowing each resident to decide how to utilize that energy. In a community, we all need to survive, or our society quickly tears itself apart.
Despite the fact that design and funding are significant up-front costs, we should consider this, because we can see what is coming. It is like paying for insurance. Without power, our entire civilization comes to a halt very quickly, but preparing in advance gives us a chance.
We in Ukiah have the advantage of owning our electrical system, and enjoy the benefit of paying much lower costs than anywhere else in the county. But that means the savings from using power more efficiently are much smaller as well. Consequently, adding community scale battery storage, and building solar production locally, are more difficult to support just from a day-to-day cost savings alone.
But these power additions, combined with strategically designed backup systems, could make Ukiah more power resilient as a community, as well as more power efficient, which is well worth considering.
