"When Karen Cakebread was forced to evacuate her home in Calistoga, Calif., during the Tubbs fire in 2017 — and when she lost power at the winery she owns — she realized the danger frequent wildfires could pose to the electricity that powers her daily life.
The news that California’s largest utility plans to proactively shut off power lines when there’s a wildfire threat gave her yet another push to transition to solar power.
“We all talk about it and think about it,” Cakebread said about adopting renewable energy. “[B]ut I think now the fire danger and the loss of power being the new normal for us, it’s prompted a lot of people to pull the trigger.”
Cakebread is just one of several residents whose concern about California utilities’ plans to impose blackouts has led them to install solar panels and battery systems to keep power on during an outage."
Paulina Firozi reports for the Washington Post May 24, 2019.
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