Tesla plant shut down temporarily due to downed high voltage power line

[JER]

Powerpacks.

Enough to run the whole factory for the weekend? Seems rather optimistic - last I saw they only had a few hundred kilowatt-hours worth. Besides, why send the workers home if everything is running?

 

[DrGuest]

Perhaps it's Time to see some plans to put PV panels on the Fremont factory roof and some power packs for robot power backup. Protect from production shut downs from crane operator accidents, and earthquakes, I heard Berkley had a 4.5 the other day.

 

[AWDtsla]

Enough to run the whole factory for the weekend? Seems rather optimistic - last I saw they only had a few hundred kilowatt-hours worth. Besides, why send the workers home if everything is running?

No, enough to safely stop the robots when they're not in the middle of some weld/glue/whatever operation that would likely mean throwing out the piece.

 

[Phil Seastrand]

Perhaps it's Time to see some plans to put PV panels on the Fremont factory roof and some power packs for robot power backup. Protect from production shut downs from crane operator accidents, and earthquakes, I heard Berkley had a 4.5 the other day.

I'm sure that's in the plans, but not for awhile. I read somewhere that the roof isn't strong enough to support PV panels. Also, the batteries they do have at the factory are for peak balancing, not big enough to power the entire plant. If this kind of mishap continues to happen, they may move these changes up in their priority list, but until then, we'll have to wait and bear with them.

 

[TEG]

...If this kind of mishap continues to happen...

I would sure hope not ! At a minimum, I would like to assume that this incident has caused new policies to be put in place to make sure cranes are more carefully monitored to make sure they never drive under the power lines again with the boom up.


Apparently, this event also impacted Western Digital corp.
Fremont: Tesla plant temporarily closes after downed power line - San Jose Mercury News

...The incident also led a neighboring business, Western Digital Corporation, to lose power for most of the day, utility spokesman Paul Moreno said...

- - - Updated - - -

...
My DS sent me a note saying "The outage was in the administration building Friday, there was not an interruption to the assembly line far as I know."

That seems to contradict some of the news stories which said it impacted the whole factory and even a neighboring business.

I haven't seen any stories saying that everything is back to normal now, but the initial reports had predicted the power would have been restored the same day (last Friday).

 

[bonnie]

I haven't seen any stories saying that everything is back to normal now, but the initial reports had predicted the power would have been restored the same day (last Friday).

It was back up either late Saturday or early Sunday. I'd be surprised to hear the factory wasn't impacted, since when I was there on Saturday & the power was yet to be restored, the parking lot was virtually deserted (unlike Sunday when it was about 80% full).