The energy company tweeted Monday afternoon that rolling outages are likely to occur after California ISO declared a Flex Alert.
In East Bay, the Genova Deli in Walnut Creek PG&E hopes will not overpower the power of the companies.
“It gives me big fears. We have no idea if it’s coming or not. It happened last year and it was not good,” said manager Andrew Takach.
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Genoa has been in business for 52 years. The store does not have a generator to keep things running, so if PG&E shuts down its power, it will soon lose most of its inventory.
“Well, the meat … we have about four hours when the fridge is on, depending on how hot it is outside,” Takach said.
At Ace Hardware around the corner, residents are making a run over items to help them deal with the heat and a loss of power.
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“Basically fans and flashlights. As you can see, we were removed. This started Sunday. Hopefully we will get some supplies after 1pm,” said assistant manager Jeff Marshall as he stood in front of empty shelves that once held fans
The store learned lessons from last year and made some changes.
“We were upgrading our battery registers. Last year they died on us, but they were old, so we got new battery backups, so those will take a few hours,” Marshall said.
VIDEO: What’s in Flex Alert?
Walnut Creek resident Charlie Gibson took it a step further. He has now installed a Tesla battery on his solar panels so he can steer his house during a strike. He made the upgrade six months ago after being treated for power outages.
“Was it last year? Last winter? We were out ten hours. And I said, ‘I can not do this.’ “Children’s activities, everyone else in the house, it just stops. And we have the capacity to do it, so why not,” Gibson said Monday morning when he showed us his power situation on an app on his phone.
The California Independent System Operator (ISO) issued a statewide Flex Alert from Sunday through Wednesday from 3pm to 10pm daily to promote electricity conservation.
PG&E strongly encourages all customers to save energy in the middle of hot weather and offers these tips:
- Raise the thermostat: cool houses and use air conditioners more in the morning. Set the thermostat to 78 degrees when you are at home for the rest of the day, allow health. Turn it up to 85 degrees or turn it off when you are not at home.
- Use a ceiling fan: Switch on a ceiling fan when using the air conditioner, which allows the thermostat to be raised by about 4 degrees to save on cooling costs without reducing comfort. Turn off fans and lights when leaving the room.
- Lid windows: Use shade cover and shielding so that the air conditioner does not have to work so hard to cool the house.
- Avoid using the oven: Cook instead on the stove, use a microwave or grill outside.
- Limit the opening of refrigerators, which are major users of electricity in most homes. The average refrigerator is opened 33 times a day.
- Clean clothes and dishes early: Use large energy-consuming appliances such as washing machines and dishwashers earlier in the day or late at night after 10am.
Click here for the latest on PG&E outages across the Bay Area.
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