CPUC Workshop - 2021-03-01
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California Public Utilities Commission
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 4
We've enacted massive efforts to prevent such further destruction, but there is so much more work to be done. I appreciated that during our January 26 meeting, the Southern California Edison shared what they are doing, their ability to sectionalize outages towards reducing the number of customers affected, that is helpful, but there's much more to be done and especially with communication from customers. It was very remarkable as you outlined the sheer number of elected and customers who called in to share their experience and it was very tough because some of those public safety power shutoffs occurred right during the holiday season. I do want to thank the wildfire safety and enforcement staff and the representatives who are here today for public health in essence and including Jessica Lim, who serves on our Low Income Oversight Board. Looking forward to the discussion.
Thank you, President Badger.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Commissioner Schiroma. Commissioner Howe, would you like to make some opening comments?
Speaker 5
I also would like to thank you for arranging and facilitating the meeting today. This is a very important issue. And as a new Commissioner, I'm looking forward to hearing from Southern California Edison and the staff and thank them for being available today to present the issues and look forward to hearing more.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you. I believe that Commissioner Usman Oceves is listening in today, so she is participating by phone.
Speaker 6
President Bacher, I am here. I'm not sure why. Oh, good. I'm sorry. I couldn't
Speaker 6
I don't have any opening remarks. Thank you. Interested in hearing from the company.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. All right. With that, we will turn to SoCal Edison to present on their corrective action plan. Edison?
Speaker 7
Good afternoon, and thank you, President Badger and Commissioners, for your time today as we review the elements of the plan that we filed on February 12. I would welcome feeling free to post the slides at any time, although they're not necessary for my opening remarks. So my name is Eric Hakayasu and I am the current Vice President of PSPS Readiness, put in charge of our plan for 2021. I've been with Edison for thirty years and I'm an incident commander for PSPS and I've been involved in some of our largest events. Your opening remarks highlight the issues and concerns that are front and center in our plan.
We look forward to continually engaging members of your staff on a biweekly basis to ensure we successfully complete the elements we identified. With the end results of reducing the frequency and scope of PSPS, improving the execution including our notifications and communications, as well as our engagement with our partners and our stakeholders. And since the January 26 meeting, Edison has assembled an organizational structure that pulls together this plan, leveraging subject matter experts from across Edison that are now dedicated to this effort. A number of them are here with me today so you can meet and directly engage with the leaders who are working to significantly improve key functions within our company involved with PSPS, given this is one of the highest priorities for our company this year. So let me just start off with brief introductions to the speakers we have online today.
Terry Ohanian is our Director over our Southeast Division for Distribution Construction Maintenance, working to execute all of our grid hardening activities, accelerating work on our most impacted circuit. Jessica Lim is our Principal Manager over customer service programs, where we have consolidated all the program services, customer notifications and communications for PSPS. Tom Brady is our Principal Manager in Business Resiliency over all of our external engagements in the area of PSPS with state and local emergency management, ICS protocols and reporting and Ranbir Sakhon is our Director of Business Transformation, integral to integrating our IT systems and digital automation enhancements across the entire program. Each one is dedicated full time for the completion of our action plan and all have been involved in PSPS either in event or ongoing improvement. Now I'll spend the rest of our time covering the action plan and I'll have a few opening remarks and comments related to our twenty twenty fire season and response.
And then we'll have a few of our leads review the plan in more detail. So if you wouldn't mind going to the presentation and specifically going to slide three, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. So as our CEO, Kevin Payne described at the January 26 meeting, 2020 was the year of unimaginable tragedy for many Californians. In our high fire risk areas, we experienced record dry fuel levels throughout the year from heat spells and lack of precipitation and a series of more significant Santa Ana wind events towards the end of the year.
We saw 70% more red flag days in 2020 versus 2019 and two thirds of our activations occurred from November through the end of the year, noting the particular hardships experienced by our customers over the holiday season. I and the members of our teams have heard the concerns and frustrations of our customers and communities who have been affected by PSPS events. And with the challenges with the COVID-nineteen pandemic that has affected all of us, the seriousness of the situation couldn't be more significant. This underscores the importance of having a more resilient grid that will significantly reduce the risk of utility equipment, sparking catastrophic wildfires and the need for PSPS. While more circuits and customers were de energized as a result of those weather events, we did see positive improvement.
Our main emphasis in 2020 was focused on the distribution system, creating segmentation plans for every one of our 1,100 circuits and our high fire risk areas. Most notably, when we compare to distribution circuits de energized in 2019, we saw fewer of those same circuits and customers de energized in 2020, and we removed around 25,000 customers in scope for PSPS. But while this yielded some benefit, there is clearly more work to do. Net overall, we saw more circuits and customers come into scope with 230,000 customers impacted when we count the number of repeated de energization. We use PSPS as a last resort to protect the lives and property of the people we serve when weather and fire conditions demand it.
But we now need to further direct our efforts to focus on the most frequently impacted circuits. Now based on our experience so far, the path towards addressing these circuits have become clear. With our strategy addressing for twenty twenty one circuits that have experienced four or more denigration since 2019. And we believe that hardening our grid will not only mitigate the frequency of PSPF, but will serve to improve the overall reliability and resiliency going forward. And while we continually work to reduce PSPF even beyond the circuits highlighted in our plan, We also need to take a further leadership role in helping our customers, communities and partners mitigate the impact of PSPS when it does occur, providing clear and transparent information status and further shaping our programs to assist our most vulnerable customers as addressed in the five main categories of actions in our plan, which are to reduce the use of PSPS, execute our events effectively, mitigate the impacts of PSPS, keeping our partners and customers informed and enhancing and improving our post event reporting.
We have quite a bit of information to cover today. Unless there are any questions at this point, I'll now hand over to Terry O'Hanian to review in more detail our plans to reduce the use of PSPS.
Speaker 2
Go ahead, Terry. I'm sorry. I was just thanking Eric. So go ahead, please. Sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 8
No worries. Sorry. Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Terry O'Hanion.
And like Eric, I have served as an IC on a significant number of the events that just occurred in this past season. So today, I'll be covering our expedited grid hardening efforts. And as Eric mentioned, we use PSCS as a last resort. And to that end, we have developed a concentrated effort to reduce the use of PSCS. Our customers have high expectations for us, two of which are to keep them safe and deliver reliable electricity.
So we will focus particular attention on frequently impacted circuits that experience four or more de energization, PSTS de energization since 2019. And the goal is to reduce the scope or the customers impacted, the frequency and also the duration of these events. We do understand 2020 was a particularly challenging year and we must learn from these past events to improve the customer experience. So our work scope for expedited grid hardening includes 72 circuits. We identified these circuits on February 19 as part of the action plan.
And we intend to accomplish this expedited effort through four primary methods. And although there are other options for grid hardening, our intent here with this effort is to ensure that we can deliver benefits before the peak '20 twenty one fire season. So ultimately, this is a multiyear effort to more extensively hardened these and other circuits as well. But this effort is focused on delivering certain achievable mitigations by October 1. The first one we left here is a grid the first grid hardening method we list here is covering our bare wire.
I think you've all heard this before, coverage conductor helps prevent unintentional contact from becoming an ignition by allowing things like tree branches, palm fronds, other debris to flow in and out of our lines without igniting or interrupting the circuit. The wind driven debris can ignite cause our wire to come down and create potential for an ignition. And by covering the wire, the potential for this occurring is greatly diminished. The benefit to our customers is that covering an entire circuit or a circuit segment enables us to raise wind speed thresholds thereby eliminating some de energization events entirely because the winds may never reach the higher thresholds. Or if it does occur, the wind speeds will likely occur later in the event.
As you can imagine, when the winds are elevating, it will occur later in the event. And then they'll also go below the threshold sooner and therefore shortening the events that actually do occur. So this will have and Eric mentioned this earlier, reliability benefits beyond only reducing PSPS as wind events can occur throughout the year and not just during PSPS events. The second method we mentioned here is installing automated switching devices or automating existing devices so that we can more narrowly isolate the areas that are experiencing the elevated wind speed. So this was a focus area for us in 2020.
And now extending on this effort, we continue to look at circuit segments rather than entire circuits. And the benefit of these sectionalizing devices is to reduce the scope of an event. And also these devices have the ability to reduce the duration for some customers as well. The third method, expedited grid hardening method that we mentioned here is to review whether certain circuits or circuit segments based on local or recent changes in environmental conditions can be removed from PFS scope entirely. The example we list here is a recent burn scar.
It may not have been previously factored into our modeling. So we want to make sure that we incorporate that. And if the fuel conditions are not conducive for an ignition to occur or for a fire to spread, then we may be able to exempt that portion of the circuit from TSPF. So with greater segmentation through continued installation of these automated switching devices, this becomes a greater possibility as we can isolate particular areas that may not be a concern. The benefit to customers could be a reduction in scope or a reduction in the frequency of PSPS events.
The fourth method is adding new weather stations, thereby improving our situational awareness of actual field conditions by adding more weather stations, particularly in areas with increased segmentation, we can attribute weather conditions more specifically to certain segments of a circuit. And we're also looking to deploy mobile weather stations. We obviously can't install weather stations in very large numbers throughout all the different areas of the circuit, but mobile weather stations give us the ability to respond quickly to changing conditions. So this will not only add to the weather reading capacity that we have, but also provide the ability to get more accurate live field conditions at a particular location that we're worried about. The benefit here to customers is the potential reduction in scope, frequency and duration of certain PSPS events.
So I want to add also that although we have a concentrated effort to develop mitigation strategies for the 72 circuits, this doesn't mean other circuits are left behind. This expedited effort represents probably about half of all the grid hardening work we're doing in 2020. So I don't want to confide that we are ignoring other customers, but I believe it's appropriate to focus these efforts on those that are experiencing the most PSPS events, particularly over the last couple of years. I'll close by just a quick update on our high level milestones that we committed to in our action plan. On February 19, we did identify list of 72 circuits we are targeting for expedited improvement.
And from a geographical standpoint, these will be mostly in communities that experienced the strongest wins because that's where most PSPS de energizations have been occurring. And by June 1, intend to implement our risk informed circuit exceptions. I'll note here that although this represents our effort to review presently identified exception conditions, It's possible some of the review work we're doing in our grid hardening, it may also provide for exceptions. So the work here likely will continue beyond June 1. And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, we're targeting to complete this work in time for peak 2021 wildfire season.
So by October 1, we intend to complete the key expedited hardening work that we are targeting as part of this effort. And I should note, obstacles. There's a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, so quite a bit to overcome. But we have a team focused on this to ensure that we have appropriate resources to help us complete the work. So with that, unless there are questions, I'll hand it over to Tom Brady who will review in more detail our plans to execute PSPS more effectively.
Speaker 6
Thank you, Carrie. Can I ask a couple of follow ups on that? Commissioner Guzman Oceves, please. Maybe we can go back one slide. You mentioned that you've identified 72 circuits.
Is that has that been increased from an effort that you've done over the winter? Or is that what you had can you explain, is this something that you've augmented given what happened last fallwinter or is this what you were planning?
Speaker 8
Yeah, I would say both. It's a focused effort on those that have been most impacted. There was already in scope mitigations that were planned. But some of these are going to need to be accelerated. Some of them will need to be augmented because as we reviewed the circuits, we were really looking for opportunities where we could really make a difference in this short amount of time.
So it's really a little bit of both. There was already a covered conductor scope flight, but I'll We use it as an may have had a completion date of October. And for us that was too late. So we were looking to advance some of the completion dates for the scope that may have already been in flight. But in re reviewing these circuits with really a focus on how do we improve the PSGS experience, were able to identify in some cases new covered conductor scope or new isolating devices that we can install.
Speaker 6
Okay. I'm not sure I quite understand. So prior to February or even prior to this, let's say, last six months, did you have previously had identified? It sounds like you have these same 72 circuits identified and you're just enhancing your review of them or are you actually enhancing the amount of circuits that you're reviewing?
Speaker 8
Many of the 72 had work in flight that was planned for 2021. So but in some cases we identified new scope that we could add to what we were doing that would improve reduce the scope, the frequency and the duration of PSPS's end. So we augmented it with new scope, but we also because some of it we felt was going to complete too late in the year to really provide as much benefit, we accelerated the completion date for some of that work.
Speaker 6
And what is an example of augmented school beyond having beyond doing the covering the conductor?
Speaker 8
things that I mentioned earlier like a new switch, an automated at a location that we thought could isolate customers that may we believe may not be as impacted by the wind. So if there's a particular segment that where we have a weather station that we're really concerned about, there may be another portion of that surface that we don't believe is experiencing the same level of wind speeds. We could have added we could add a new automated sectionalizing device, automated switch to give us the ability to only de energize the portion that we're worried about.
Speaker 6
Okay. But you're and the way you described it is you're currently assessing the feasibility. So you don't have like a master description of all these all the investments that are going to take place on these 72 circuits yet?
Speaker 8
Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, it's really circuit by circuit. So we've gone through a series of what we call deep dives going through each circuit, understanding the scope that's already in place and what more we could do to further improve the PSPS experience for the twenty twenty one wildfire season. So it really was starting with what we already have in place and then getting a team of people together, engineers and various other folks and looking at what we could You know, could we cover an entire segment?
You know, how much is remaining there? Could we add a new weather station over here where we think the wind speeds aren't as Okay.
Speaker 8
So identification of the 72 circuit is complete. We're currently going through a benefits assessment. So we want to make sure the mitigations that we've identified will yield the type of benefit that we're hoping for. If not, we plan to iterate and go back. But so at this point, we are we're going through that process and we the goal is to finish all this work by October 1.
Speaker 6
Okay. And then help me understand this June threshold. So June is when you decide that some of these distinct investments or particular circuits don't need to be included?
Speaker 8
Yes. So the June is the exception process. So we have another team looking through the circuit and identifying areas of a circuit that may not be a concern. The obvious one is a recent burn scar. So the fuels just aren't there.
And if we're able to isolate that segment, we may be able to avoid putting that segment under PSTS for this upcoming fire season. Other areas we look at might be if we can install a switch at a particular location, maybe there is a portion of it that runs through a developed area like a parking lot or just an area that doesn't appear to have fuels that would be conducive to a fire. So they're identifying those and what we'll do is submit them for exceptions, just confirm, we'll send somebody out in the field and confirm what we're seeing on the maps that in fact it is not an area that we should be overly concerned about. In some of these cases we'll have to install some additional sectionalizing devices to be able to isolate it because the segment that we currently have might extend from this nonconcerning area up into, let's just say, you know, a wildfire area. So we may have to do some additional work there, but the intent is to exclude it from PSPS consideration.
And that will be completed June 1. You know, that with our initial effort, I don't want to imply that our work is ever done. If new opportunities are identified post June 1, our intent is to continue on with that work.
Speaker 2
You're welcome. Teri, before we go to Tom, I have a question. This may be premature in your presentation. So if it is, you can wait and address it later. But in real time, when you get right down to calling a PSPS, can someone during the course of the presentation please walk me through the steps that are considered before you actually execute?
What are those decision points that you as a team, you and the executive team, what is it that you absolutely consider? And what we're talking about here is, I understand, shortening the duration, trying to harden the system so fewer PSPSs have to be called. But I really want to get a good solid picture of to sort of define what you when we all say a PSPS is at the last resort. So I want to know what are those three or four or five decision points that determine that, okay, we've got to do it. So again, it may be premature in your presentation, but I want us to get to that.
Speaker 7
I have a suggestion. Maybe we can try to address your question now, but I think there'll probably be other pieces of information that might also help inform as we go through our engagement with external parties and some of the other considerations. Why don't we go ahead and start and I'll start it off and I'll look to the team here to supplement the discussion. So like all other PSTS events that begins with the forecast and we have a circuit by circuit forecast for every one of our distribution circuits as well as our sub transmission and our transmission lines. And as part of that, we look out three to five days, but we do look at this line by line as far as what we first of all, you know, is this a credible event that's coming in?
And if so, we start to look at anywhere from our transmission and everything that's downstream of that as well as all of our distribution lines. If we think there's a transmission or sub transmission event that's potentially in scope, One of the other things that we do is we perform what's called the reliability study. So there's a distinctive difference here between power systems that are on the distribution system that are radial, that directly feed our customers versus a network system that we have on the sub transmission and the transmission lines. And generally the wind speed thresholds for those are higher. So there's a lot fewer lines that we have in scope, but what we're to identify is whether or not the lines in scope are there other alternatives that we could use instead if we got into an issue whereby we could continue to maintain service to our customers and if needed de energize portions of our sub transit transmission lines.
So we I guess the best case scenario here is if we do have to de energize that we're able to de energize sections of our sub trans and transmission system without interrupting service to our customers. On the distribution side, we have grown and adopted and evolved towards a segment by segment real time decision as opposed to circuit by circuit. So this raises some complexities that I do want to talk about. So when we think about a larger scale event, and I'm just going to say, you know, typically we'll see somewhere northward of 150 to 200 circuits on a large event. What that means real time is that we are monitoring 700 plus segments because of the way we sexualize the system.
But anticipation of the event, we do what's called pre patrols of our system. And what a pre patrol is, is armed with information that we know about in terms of prior maintenance items or other areas of concern that our field resources are aware of. They perform a cursory review before the weather event begins to identify if there are anything on our if there's any issues on our system that needs to be remediated quickly. So we call those pre patrols and they are designed to be both conducted on the distribution as well as our sub transit and transmission system. So that's information that is also taken into account.
When we get into the weather event itself, we look at what the size of the event is going to be. If this is going to be a small event, or we have a handful of circuits, a medium or a large size event, because that determines that the resources we need, the coverage we need and our incident management team, it determines how much in advance we need to stand up and get ready for an event. So, small events we want our field resources and our teams to be set up two hours before the period of concern. What we've seen in 2020 is weather can come up very quickly, particularly in those larger events. So, when we get into the actual event and the period of concern, everybody's monitoring, we have live observers in the field, That's when we look at well, and I'll take a step back.
Prior to that beginning, we establish if it is a larger event, how might we prioritize de energization segment by segment? Because one of the things that we have to be able to do is not only exercise and understand our threshold, we have to manage the event responsibly. So if we think that we're going to face a large number of de energization subsequently happening one after the other because we're looking at everything segment by segment, we look at how might we prioritize that based on risk. So we established some alert levels for our threshold that if we really started to see events escalate that we would take more decisive action sooner when we forecast our thresholds to be breached, but in larger numbers. So, when we get into the actual events, we look to our business resiliency department to see if there's any issues that have come up in our public safety partner.
We do the notifications. We identify if there's anything that we need to respond to before the one event begins. And what we've done most recently is in the large event in January, we reached out to all of the hospitals and COVID centers that we knew were going to be potentially a significant issue. So we wanted to understand if they had resiliency plans in place, if there are things that we needed to do differently in our system in terms of de energization, and do we need a standby to provide generation if we have to? So then we get into the event, we look at both our FPI as well as our wind speeds and input from our live observers.
One of the things we noted in December, which is a bit challenging is sometimes it's followed by a precipitation event or there's been some moisture coming in earlier expected to dry up. So we also track what's called a weather rating on all of our circuits to understand whether or not the FBI information we have, if there's any questions around it. So there have been times when moisture has settled in and we've backed off, but there's been other times when the wind speeds have increased faster than expected and we have to take action sooner. So we then our dashboards are looking at all of our weather stations and all of our segments and we're tracking each one and sorted by worst case situation than the ones we don't have to worry about. Operations teams are in constant communication with our partners, with our business resiliency folks and with the incident commander.
So when the decision has to be made, we authorize eminent notifications to be issued. And then if all the conditions then meet, that's when we take action to the energize. Now, that was a little bit long winded, I'm hoping to at least hit most of the high points and there's a lot of nuances throughout the process.
Speaker 2
One quick follow-up and then we will turn to Tom. The wind speeds that you are gauged that help in your decision making, is that 35 miles an hour sustained?
Speaker 7
So we use three different levels for threshold. Most of them are based either on the ninety ninth percentile historical wind speed and sometimes they're using the National Weather Service Wind Advisory level of 31 miles an hour sustained and 46 mile an hour gusts. There are also going to be ones that historically are slightly above that, but we'll use the National Weather Service where we have designated the highest risk either by tier or by consequence modeling. And then the third set that I referenced was ones that we have identified have particular outage increases or rates of outages for particular wind speeds. But for the most part, they're either based on the ninety ninth percentile or the National Weather Service Wind Advisory.
Speaker 9
Thank you for that. So good afternoon, President Thatcher and Commissioners. I'm going to open on this slide by describing our ongoing efforts to work towards addressing the variance between notifications and de energization through improving the precision and the granularity of our forecasting capabilities. I will also provide an update on our continued efforts to improve the transparency and the effectiveness of our communication and engagement with our emergency management partners prior to, during and after events. SCE de energizes circuits based on actual observed conditions in the field and not on forecast.
To help reduce the variance between notification and de energization, it is critical for our forecast to align as closely as possible with actual conditions in the field during the period of concern. SCE currently has two supercomputers that run a twice daily high resolution weather forecast for each of our PSPS circuit. These forecasts are further refined in events by our expert fire scientists and teams of experienced meteorologists to identify the circuits that are forecast to reach levels that create an imminent fire hazard risk. We have initiated the procurement process to bring on board two additional supercomputers, which will allow us to double the resolution of our weather model by going from two kilometers to one kilometer. This will allow our meteorologists and fire science team to predict weather conditions more accurately throughout the complex and dynamic topography and microclimates where our circuits exist.
Additional supercomputing resources will also allow us to provide our meteorologists with access to more forecast output or a broader range of possible outcomes to pace their predictions on, also known as Ensemble Forecasting. We are developing machine learning models for 50 weather station locations, starting with highly impacted circuits and where forecasts have been the least accurate. Beginning later in the summer and into next year, we will begin developing models for all of our weather stations representing some of our longer term efforts to train and to retrain our models over time as each station accumulates more data to produce a more accurate result. Switching gears and moving down to the middle of the slide, let me start by reiterating that nothing is more important to us at SCE in the safety and the well-being of our customers during de energization events. We are continuing to build on the long standing relationships we have established with our county and state emergency management partners to mutually plan for and help mitigate against public safety risks during PSTS events.
We have scheduled meetings with all of the county emergency management officials in high fire risk areas, and those meetings will occur prior to March 31. We will use the discussions to solicit feedback, listen to understand and identify ways that we can communicate more effectively prior to, during and after events. We will use these learnings to update our procedures for more effectively communicating with our emergency management agency partners during these events. We are also meeting monthly with our partners at the California State Warning Center at Calawaya to align our in event communication and information sharing protocols. We are committed to providing our partners with the right information at the right time and in the right way.
Now I'm going to pause for questions before turning it over to Jessica to discuss some of our other updates in area of effective PSPS execution.
Speaker 9
So we scheduled meetings with all of the county emergency management officials to occur prior to March 31. So sort of a pre wildfire season opportunity to connect and think and listen and make improvements to our protocol. And then we are meeting with Cal OES, the warning center folks monthly up from now and through the start of fire season.
Speaker 10
All right. Thank you, Tom. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to share how we are prioritizing our customers' experience during PSPS events, which also includes informing our customers at every critical step. When PSPS events occur in the same timeframe as other outages such as a storm or rotating outage, this can be confusing to our customers to have to decipher between these outages for status updates.
So I wanted to share that by June on sc.com, customers, those that are account holders and those that are non account holders, they're going to find it easier to navigate from our homepage to look up the status of their PSPS event and they're not going to have to determine upfront which type of outage they are looking up. So customers can also continue to go directly to si.com/pss to get their PSPS specific updates. We also understand that we can improve on notifications. We heard a lot about this from our customers as a pain point and we need to minimize the variance between notifications and de energizations, missed notifications and the sources of confusion and redundant messages that lead to notification fatigue. So to improve the notifications experience, we have initiated an end to end analysis, which will be informed by our customers and our stakeholders.
We are looking at improvements to our internal processes and tools, especially during the day of an event when we may have several circuits hit thresholds simultaneously in large scale events. We're committed to improve the precision, timeliness and the content of our notifications. A few of our near term deliverables include completing an examination of the causes of any twenty twenty notification issues by the March, which will inform the design of our future internal practices and digital tools by May. We will also complete a review of the entire notification experience from the customer's point of view and identify future state improvements by May such as messaging and the reduction of notification fatigue by reviewing the frequency of notifications sent out. Lastly, we will focus on migrating customers to premise level alerts to improve notification and information clarity by June.
So unless there are any questions, I can move on to the next slide.
Speaker 2
As a follow-up, and then I'll turn to Commissioner Schiroma. Would you just repeat what you said in terms of premise discussion? Mean, decision as the nears and as ours? Could you elaborate on that a bit?
Speaker 10
Yes, I can elaborate that on that. Basically, right now customers that are not account holders or even if they are account holders, we give them the choice that they can sign up for what we call zip code alerts. And zip code alerts are easy to sign up for and customers can get an alert via the phone, text or email. And what creates confusion is that a customer may get a zip code alert which is based on all circuits versus a premise level alert which is based on just your address. And so premise level alerts are more specific.
So we believe that zip code alerts while convenient are creating some confusion for our customers. So we'd like to migrate those that are enrolled in zip code alerts to premise set level alerts.
Speaker 2
We had many comments in our January meeting, if you listened in about how confusing it was to have zip code alerts. So I hope this is definitely an improvement for your customers. Again, this question may be a little premature, but you've talked about who you're meeting with and the different things that you're doing to make improvements by the March and then by the May. Are you planning any customer town hall type style meetings or customer touches so that you are hearing directly from your customers, not just from emergency managers and county folks and the state, all of which is very important. But I'm concerned about how much you are actually getting input from those that have been most impacted by the PSPS.
Yes.
Speaker 10
Thank you and great question. So as I mentioned, we are informing our recommendations with actual customer feedback. At the November, we initiated a new PSPS survey and that survey is called our Voice of the Customer program, where customers have been impacted by PSPS events, they are invited to take a survey and we can get their immediate feedback. We're also going to plan to do research on whatever messages we come up with to improve the notification experience and have our customers directly inform the recommendations that we're making. So we have several different touch points and opportunities for customers to inform our plans.
Speaker 7
Jessica, one thing I'd add is that I think on Slide nine, we do have a listing of town hall style meetings with our most impacted communities. We're going to host three virtual community meetings for some of our most impacted communities in this month. And then the following of those will be done by the end of the second quarter.
Speaker 2
Okay. That will be very important. Last thing and then I'll turn to Commissioner Schiroma. Just an FYI, we had over an hour, maybe it was two hours, comments in the January meeting from your customers. And I'm just going to say not one mentioned it's customer survey, that they had filled it out or had been notified of it or were aware of it, just FYI.
Commissioner Schiroma?
Speaker 4
Thank you, President Doctor. Yes, at that January 26 public session, we heard from a lot of people. And we heard some electeds from think it's by every city council member of Acton Town spoke. We also heard from electeds from Simi Valley, Ojai, Stanton, Orange County, Malibu, and so forth. And from Senator Russell, Senator Stern, various assembly members and so forth.
So my question is, you're describing a pretty massive effort, but in that effort and your 72 circuit sector you've made as a higher priority, are you going back and communicating with these electeds who are representing their communities, juxtaposed against what your priorities are with these circuits and what does it mean for them? In other words, are you getting granular on this and going back to the people who bothered to phone in and talk to us on the twenty sixth? And not only these jurisdictions, but really all over as far as what you're prioritizing for this work and what does it mean potentially for them. Whoever wants to answer, whether it's Jessica or somebody else.
Speaker 7
Yeah, I'll chime in here. So, we are meeting with a number of elected officials and notifications is one of the things that we cover. One of the things that we've heard and some of the input is around confusion because particularly at the end of the year we have so many back to back events that I think in one case one of the county supervisors reported that there were sort of like 36 notifications that they had received for a single event. So, that kind of speaks to, you know, one, we are getting feedback. But the second thing is, there may be a way that we have to communicate with our local government and our public safety partners in a way that also simplifies what is happening during the event.
And then our customers also have to have a level of simplification and lack of redundancy and clarity in the messaging to them as well. So I think feedback will take and we'll continue to ask more and more information about what we could do to improve our response. But the short answer to your question is yes, that is one of the pieces in addition to the grid hardening work that's going on in each of the areas.
Speaker 4
back and listen to the public comments and overlay that with the engineering priorities and software priorities that you set out towards making sure that you've got you linked up the human condition with
Speaker 2
Thank you, Commissioner Schiromma. Okay, seeing no other questions, back to you, I think, Jessica.
Speaker 10
Okay, thank you. So I'm going to go ahead and move on to this slide here. As Eric shared in his opening remarks, SCE will help our customers, communities and partners mitigate the impact of PSPS providing programs and services especially for our most vulnerable customers. So we have expanded our critical care backup battery program to all eligible medical baseline customers that reside in a high fire risk area and are enrolled in CARE or FARA. So this year, we are not facing the same contributors to a delayed start as we did last year to this program.
So I just want to briefly mention that in 2020 with impact from COVID-nineteen, we experienced some inventory challenges and we took a more conservative marketing approach to reduce in person contact. And this year we have inventory. We are supported by a more robust marketing program to match our expanded population. We've already initiated marketing for this program with a combination of direct mail, email and outbound phone calls. So each eligible customer will now receive multiple contact attempts and will also send second and third follow-up letters to follow-up those phone call attempts.
And then we are also going to be partnering with local and tribal governments and community based organizations to reach and enroll as many customers as we can. So for example, we have been finalizing messaging that will go into a March newsletter that will be sent to all of our 1,600 network CBO agencies just at the start. And we're going to be routinely tracking our progress and taking proactive mitigation measures to support customer participation. And we'll also measure customer satisfaction with our program on a monthly basis. So this month, we're also promoting, all of our other backup battery solutions such as our online marketplace portable batteries for our customers and generators for those that rely on electricity to pump water in their home or businesses.
And with the approval of our self generation incentive program marketing education and outreach advice letter, we are launching marketing efforts in April to promote the equity resiliency incentive for residential and non residential customers, which also supports our vulnerable customers. And then lastly, for community resiliency, we're working with Jessica,
Speaker 3
is Cliff Rexhoffer. Can I ask you some follow-up questions, if I may, on the backup program? At the hearing in January, you said that you have provided batteries for eight thirty critical care customers and your goal was to reach 3,000 to 4,000 in high fire threat areas. So where are you I assume that's not a different goal than what you just articulated. So where you said you've expanded from 2,500 to 12,000 customers.
I'm not sure I guess we should just level set. What is your goal? What does it mean that you've expanded the program? Oh, you extended eligibility, but do you still have a goal reach 3,000 to 4,000 customers directly? And are you any farther along than providing batteries for eight thirty customers at this point?
Speaker 10
Yes. So you're correct that we are expanding the eligibility from about 2,500 critical care customers to about 12,000 medical baseline customers. So our goal is to be able to promote so that all eligible customers are aware of this program with multiple contact attempts by Edison. And we are forecasting that we may get around three to 4,000 batteries this year based on what we have experienced and our conversations with the other IOUs. But again, I just want to end with our goal is really not to have a certain number in mind, but it's to reach all of our eligible customers for this program because we know how critical it is and we are really working with community based organizations and promoting these programs with our local and tribal governments and our upcoming meetings as well.
Oh, and I'm sorry, I forgot to answer your other question. We are about over 1,000 batteries enrolled and we are now ramping up the marketing for the eligible base. And so the about over 1,000 so far is really just with the critical care customers because we just started on the eligible population.
Speaker 3
I'm understanding you correctly, you're expanding eligibility. You want to offer it to 12,000. You believe it's realistic that your 3,000 to 4,000 customers will take advantage of the program?
Speaker 3
Okay. Let me ask you a little bit more. By the way, are rate are these ratepayer funded programs or shareholder funded programs?
Speaker 3
And let me ask you, what do you offer the customers if it's a SCE specific program. We're familiar with the SCHIP equity resilience program since that's subject to commission directives of course. And the goal there is for medical baseline customers and customers in disadvantaged communities to get a rebate that's essentially equivalent to the cost of a backup battery, so that it's fully subsidized. Is that the case for the backup equipment, the batteries that you offer to your critical care customers?
Speaker 10
That's correct. Subsidized, free battery with a three year warranty as well as a 200 watt silver panel.
Speaker 2
The corrective action plan, Jessica, says that you will be doing the mailing and e mailing about the battery backup programs, but battery vendors will be doing the actual calling. So you all won't be contacting the customers, it will be a third party or a vendor. Is that going to be terribly confusing to your customers?
Speaker 10
Not necessarily. We do mention in our letter to our customers that a qualified contractor will be calling the customer. We also provide the number for the customer to call the contractor themselves. We have four contractors that are ESA contractors, Energy Savings Assistance Program. So they're very familiar with vulnerable customer populations.
One of our contractors is also a community based organization as well.
Speaker 3
That's okay. I just want to confirm what you told me just a moment before because I have that says that on your marketplace, there's the list of available batteries varies in costs from $600 to $1,400 but both have a $500 rebate depending on the customer status. But you're telling me that they're in fact you're providing the full cost of the battery to the customers?
Speaker 10
Right. Commissioner, we have various different battery programs. So the ones you're referring to on our marketplace, those are for a rebate. They're not for the fully subsidized. The batteries available for our critical care backup program is fully subsidized and the cost for those batteries range from $2,000 to $5,000
Speaker 3
And then one final question. I heard you say unlike in the fall, there's not a problem with backup inventory in terms of actually getting the batteries delivered to California.
Speaker 10
Yes, for the critical care battery backup program with the manufacturer that we have partnered with, They now have a Utah facility that will help facilitate distribution and inventory that issues that we had, were more towards the beginning to the middle of last year.
Speaker 10
Okay. I just want to end on one last point on this slide, which is that for community resiliency, we're working with community leaders in certain remote areas to enable backup power as part of our resiliency zones pilot. So four sites are currently under construction and we are working with local and tribal governments to identify additional sites. And we will identify certain remote community resource centers to enable on-site backup power so that they can continue to provide service to the community if that CRC site is impacted by a PSTS event. And so to date, we are working with three CRCs and enabling backup power, and we're identifying additional sites by June.
So are there any last questions before we go on to the next slide?
Speaker 4
I have a question. Thanks. So in your Correction Action Plan, have 56 community resource centers under contract and nine of the CCVs, the mobile van. So how are the other community resource centers other than those you just outlined that are going to have on-site backup power, how are the other centers powered? Or are they outside or you said they're outside of the PSPS zone?
Speaker 10
Yes, good question. So we are utilizing the thought of enabling backup power for those sites that are in remote in certain remote areas, thinking that they might be more prone towards our PSPS events versus some of our other sites are more adjacent to PSPS events and they're cited in such a way that we can utilize them during PSPS.
Speaker 10
Sure. Okay. We can go on to this slide here. So I want to just talk about that SCE understands our partners and customers need to be informed about PSPF. And so our marketing campaign this year focuses on educating customers and the public on PSPF, including the conditions that trigger a PSPF, how to prepare and how to access information about events including signing up for notifications and all the available programs, rebates and services that we offer.
So I wanted to mention that by April, we will have new ads to refresh our marketing to improve customer awareness of our available programs and to provide clear and concise language on mitigation, preparedness and community investments. So and our new ads will be informed by customer message testing. And then for our most vulnerable customers, SCE will be expanding the verification of notification deliveries during PSPS events to medical baseline and self certified vulnerable customers by July. And we'll expand marketing to promote the medical baseline program starting this month. To better identify the needs of AFN customers, we are partnering with members of the AFN Statewide Council and next month, SCE will initiate the development of a research study.
And by July, we will have a webpage that will enable customers to self certify as vulnerable online, update contact information and receive helpful information on programs and services. And keeping our customers informed about PSPF is a partnership with public safety partners, stakeholders, local and tribal governments. And by June, SCE will launch a public safety partner portal to improve coordination in the planning and in event response. Similar to PG and E's portal, SCE will provide user login access to information and for planning purposes, the portal will provide circuit maps, a summary of potentially impacted customers, PSPF policies, procedures and sample notifications. And for event information, SCE will provide event specific information and maps, PSPS outage and restoration areas, a list of affected customers and situation reports.
And then lastly, SCE engages with local and tribal government and public safety partners throughout the year to share information and to receive ongoing feedback on improvement and collaboration opportunities. So we are having one of our quarterly meetings with our PSPS working groups this week and the advisory board next week. And we'll be specifically seeking additional feedback on the action plan that we just filed with the commission. And on our next step slide, Eric will provide more information on other upcoming meetings. So that's all I had.
Unless there are any other questions, I was going to turn it over back to Tom Brady.
Speaker 2
I have a quick question on your follow-up on your public safety partner portal. And you just referenced PG and E. One of the issues very much improved, by the way, on that they had a portal between 2019 and 2020. But one of the concerns that folks had that I'm recalling was that the information on the portal needed to be kept up to date, timely and as useful as possible. And that wasn't that was a bit of a struggle, I think.
And the other thing we all need to keep in mind is oftentimes in the areas where you have a PS, you have people who, because of the lack of electricity, and they have no access to their computers, They have no access to telephones. So it's a real safety issue, of course, and communication. And we have to keep that in mind, and I'm hoping that you're communicating very closely along the way as you're doing all of these different preparations for twenty twenty one fire season with the telecommunications companies that are in your service territory.
Speaker 10
Yes, thank you. We do meet on a monthly basis with our critical infrastructure customers, and we are planning to meet actually with our telecom partners by the end of this month.
Speaker 6
Yes, and I think we've had we've heard different things in the past. In some cases, the utilities have expressed concern with not being able to identify the right points of contact at the telecommunication providers with them. And then we hear the inverse. And can you talk a little bit about what is what are the topics you're going to be talking about and what's the work plan? Are you getting specific as an example to talk about opportunities for coordinated backup power, coordinated locations on keeping towers lit at a minimum for wireless connectivity?
There's already an overlap with your infrastructure. Is there a more specific set of planning that you could be doing with these providers so that customers can at least retain their as much communication and connectivity as possible?
Speaker 10
Yes. I think that our overall general approach is that we want to first start off with listening to what the pain points are and we also want to integrate the new CPUC decision on resiliency for telecom providers. We have a business customer division that meets with these critical customers and our business customer division will be meeting to discuss and help enable the resiliency plans for each of these customers. And so I imagine that as the agenda gets developed for this first meeting at the March, we'll be getting specific as to how we can best support and partner with our telecom customers.
Speaker 6
And just as an example, you mentioned you're targeting these 72 circuits where you'll be reviewing the possibility of how to mitigate the PSPSs, but you have identified these circuits as likely PSPS areas. Do you have a plan with the telecommunication providers for each of those circuits?
Speaker 10
I think I might have to reach out to some of the others on this panel to help out with that question.
Speaker 9
Hey, Jessica, it's Tom Brady. I'll just add that in 2020, we did meet with the major telecom providers within our service territory in coordination with our business customer division and did provide those telecom companies with a list of their most frequently impacted circuits to assist with resiliency planning, understanding that although weather conditions can change, what's occurred in the past is often a good predictor of future PSPS impact. So look to do that again in 2021 to help the telecom providers prioritize their resiliency efforts in the locations that are most at risk for potential de energization.
Speaker 6
And do they meet with you along with the first responders that you are coordinating with? Are they at the table as well?
Speaker 9
So when we have the monthly or not the monthly, when we have our meetings with the county emergency management agencies that are going to happen before March 31, the telecom providers are currently invited. But I will share that the telecom providers are included in our working groups and advisory boards. And so that's an opportunity to work through lessons learned and posted feedback and sort of an information sharing forum with multiple partners in the same forum.
Speaker 4
you mentioned that your advisory group is meeting this week. And would you describe who's on the advisory group? Entities are represented on that advisory group?
Speaker 10
Okay. So we are starting with the working groups, Commissioner, this week. I know you're asking about the advisory group, but maybe I'll just provide some context on the working groups first. These are regionalized working groups and they are made up of different regions in terms of our territory. So we have three meetings coming up this week and they are made up of the different IOUs, communication water service providers, CPUC staff, community choice aggregators, small multi jurisdictional electric utilities, tribal and local government entities, public safety partners and representatives of those with access and functional needs.
And the advisory board consists of public safety partners, communications and water service providers, local and tribal government officials, business groups, nonprofit organizations, representatives of AFN and academic organizations.
Speaker 4
Okay. And these are compiled on a regional basis so that there is a sense for the local for localized needs?
Speaker 10
Correct. So there are three regions, as I mentioned. The first region is Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara County. Region five is Kern, Tulare, Fresno, Madera and the Tulalumne County. Sorry, I can't pronounce that.
And then Region 6 is San Bernardino, Riverside, Mono and Inyo County.
Speaker 9
Okay. So Tom Brady here again. Wanted to spend a few minutes on Slide eight to discuss the improvements we are making to our post event reporting protocols to ensure that we're describing each of our de energization events in a clear, transparent and compliant manner. We did complete an initial gap analysis of our current post event reporting template by reviewing regulatory decisions and considering inputs from our stakeholders, including interveners, public safety partners, as well as the commission. This effort allowed us to begin to identify further areas where we do need to provide additional information in our post event reports to better and more comprehensively describe the factors we consider when deciding to activate for a PSPS event, notify customers and de energize circuits.
Some initial examples of the changes we're making based on these lessons learned include strengthening our data validation, our quality assurance and quality control activities separately and clearly describing multiple periods of concern for complex events, comprehensively reporting complaints and providing notification status of medical baseline customers. We did make initial changes to our February 4 post event report to begin implementing some of these learnings. And we do acknowledge that more work still needs to be done in this area prior to the twenty twenty one fire season. We intend to use Phase three of the PSP SOIR to seek further clarity on the expectations and preferred reporting framework for future post event reporting activities. This will include leaning into our ongoing benchmarking efforts with our sister IOUs to align on best practices.
We will continue to work closely with commission staff to discuss the results of our GAAP analysis and to solicit input on planned enhancements to content, format or other parameters to make sure we are coming into alignment on expectations and requirements. With that, I will close and pause for questions before handing it back to Eric to discuss next steps.
Speaker 2
You said that you're reporting in a list of things that you said, I may have missed it. You said you're reporting complaints. To whom are you reporting the complaints?
Speaker 2
I thought you said something about reporting complaints when you listed the various things you're doing. And I want to know to Yes. No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Speaker 9
Yes. So one the areas that we believe that we have a gap that we need to have more information in is how we report complaints in the post event report. So we have always reported complaints, but prior to our most recent event, those complaints were generally formal complaints that were filed with the commission. And in our 2021 post events and starting with the post event report that we recently submitted, we did begin including additional complaints, such as the ones that are filed with our consumer affairs group, as well as formal complaints that we received through the commission and through our liaison officer during events.
Speaker 7
Okay. If there are no further questions, I think we can move to Slide nine. This is the last slide for the presentation today. A lot of what's listed here we actually covered throughout the presentation in discussing the upcoming working group and advisory board meetings, upcoming community engagement meetings to solicit feedback and hear from our customers. And also additional meetings with local elected leaders, local government tribes, critical infrastructure customers and our public safety partners.
One thing I just want to, you know, if there are any other questions, but I just want you know, thank you, President Batcher and the commissioners for your really great questions and thoughtful feedback. We really appreciate the engagement today. We believe that the action plan that we've outlined is a significant step towards addressing the issues raised throughout 2020 and we do look forward to the next part of the session in the public comment.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Eric. Just real quickly, and then I'll turn to my fellow commissioners. You just listed all of the working groups on Slide nine. One of the things I needed to clarify earlier and perhaps did not is, have you actually dedicated people within the company who are liaisons specifically to the county, people that are have operational awareness and understanding so that they can very quickly and efficiently address the county questions and concerns in a real time manner.
Speaker 7
MR. Yes. And Mr. Brady, I think this might be a good question for you because I think you live in this space every
Speaker 9
Yes, that's great Eric. Happy to answer the question. So specific to government partners, I'll get my video back on here. We do communicate directly with them through our liaison officer on our incident management team. That's a 20 fourseven dedicated point of contact between local and state government partners and our incident management team.
Relatedly, on the emergency management side, we do have a business resiliency duty manager and PSPF lead coach who are a direct conduit into the emergency management agencies at both the county and state level. And so there's a lot of ongoing and frequent conversations between the business resiliency contacts and those emergency management officials both formally and then also on an ad hoc basis as issues or concerns come up during each event.
Speaker 2
Okay. I'm sure we're going to have follow-up questions in our regular meetings to make sure that those are really tight contacts. Thank you. And I think Commissioner Rexhaven, you had a question.
Speaker 3
Thank you. I have a comment first and then a question. In terms of next steps. Just want to let you know that our public outreach team has observed that at some of your PSPS public meetings, you're not leaving enough time for public comments and questions. So I think it's very, very important that you try to do that.
And we've heard this criticism of about the other utilities and it applies to us, I'm sure as well that there's too much information just thrown at ratepayers and customers and not enough time for the give and take and the feedback. So this is something that we've observed. So we ask you to try to adopt your meetings in a way that you leave enough time for public comments and questions. So that was that's the comment. And the question I have is, last year, you had a program where you provided some refunds to customers resulting from certain financial harm, food spoilage and things like that if you didn't provide adequate notice, advanced notice of a shutoff.
Are you planning a similar program for this year?
Speaker 10
I can take that question. Yes. So Commissioner, you're referring to our 2019 claims exemption process that we had instituted last year. We are currently looking at alternatives for our customers' impacts to food loss, and we will report back if we have made progress in the exploration of alternatives. But for now, we still have our current claims process that is in effect.
Speaker 10
That means that the 2019 exemption is no longer in effect and we are utilizing our current claims process, which does not include that exemption as it has expected.
Speaker 10
We're evaluating something that might be similar, whether it makes sense to include going forward, which also could include other ideas that are not related to claims.
Speaker 10
So they will be more in the vein of program solutions such as more donations to food banks or similar programs that PG and E is implementing. So we're starting with looking at what types of customers are impacted to see if we can come up with those programmatic solutions and we're just in the beginning exploration stages.
Speaker 3
Do you have an estimate of the number of claims you've got this last fall, this last fire season with all the shutoffs, fall and winter?
Speaker 10
We do have all the claims metrics that we can follow-up with if necessary.
Speaker 3
Yes, thank you. I'd be interested in that. And also I'd be interested in hearing back when you determine how you're going to proceed on this issue going forward.
Speaker 4
for me for today. I know you're planning for the 2021 season and ordinarily we will be talking about the summer to fall time frame, but the the those those PSTSs, you know, around the holidays and around the around the new year were startling. So in your outlook, the team's outlook for 2021, are you planning for the potential for the season to start far earlier? You've outlined activities in March and April, you know, going into June. Are you also prepared that you may have to invoke TSPSs the middle of all of your outreach efforts?
And are you ready for that?
Speaker 7
Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Schrum. I'll take this. So, are concerned about the weather this year. The lack of precipitation seems to have carried over so far. Certainly it's still time will tell over the course of the next month or two.
I think the you know, the at least according to our meteorologists, the Lavinia pattern is expected to kind of loosen up and start to diminish beginning in April. So, are I think we are seeing potentially some upcoming precipitation, but certainly right now our outlook at this time looks to be drier. So in terms of preparation, is on our minds that the folks that are working really hard in getting our plans ready, we're going to have to and our plan to supplement to be able to conduct operational activities while in the midst of improving the situation for our customers, which is the highest priority. And so we operationally just need to supplement our resources with that ability to continue.
Speaker 2
Do we have any other questions, commissioners? I will fill in one question. I know you've given us some good time frames here, March, June. I hope and we will continue to ask these questions of you because there are still things that are underway, going to be done, soon will be done. And it's extremely important, as you all well know, that all of this be done well before fire season, particularly your communications with the communities, tribal governments, the local governments, the battery backup is so incredible, incredibly important.
And we almost every commission meeting, we have public comment of concern, not only whether they have battery backup, but the cost of battery backup. So very critical to stay on track with all of that. And as I said, we will be making sure in our every other week meetings that we're tracking with you on your accomplishments and that you're nailing those time frames. I think somebody said a lot going on with very little time, and I'll just underscore that. That's so true.
All right. Any other questions? Okay. Seeing none, we will now turn to public comments. Let me just say, if you wish to make a public comment, dial into (800) 857-1917 and enter passcode 800000147204, and press star one to be placed into the queue, and the operator will take your name and information.
If you have already dialed in to the public comment telephone line, please press star 1 to get into the public comment queue. We will allot two minutes of time for your comment for you to speak. You will hear a bell sound when your time is up. And please be mindful of other speakers in the queue and keep to your allotted time of two minutes. With that guidance in mind, I welcome today's callers in the public comment period.
I will now turn to the operator to open the public comment telephone line. Operator?
Speaker 1
Thank you. The public comment line is now open. Our first speaker is Rachel Wong. Your line is open.
Speaker 5
Great. Hi, my name is Rachel Wong. I'm the Associate University Engineer at California State University Chancellor's Office. I am listening in today on behalf of some of our campuses and I have a request for kind of more robust and transparent reporting on the work that SDE has done to date to kind of strengthen the resilience of our electric grid, as well as maybe something along the lines of a prioritization matrix and the timeline for when each project that is coming along the pipe, for example, the 72 circuits and anything else that's relevant, so that us as customers, we are able and our campuses are able to plan to improve our own infrastructure and improve our own infrastructure resilience. And then my last point is just that access to reliable infrastructure is an equity issue, so if we could develop this reporting to maybe also include some socioeconomic and demographic data of the impacted communities, that would be great.
Speaker 2
Okay. We seem to be having some difficulties with Mr. Holland's line. Would you like to go on to the next caller? And hopefully, that line will be able to be reopened.
Speaker 12
President, Thatcher and Commissioners, Masisa Gobian, City of Santa Clarita. On behalf of the Santa Clarita City Council, I want to express our appreciation for the Commission's attention to this critical matter and the opportunity to provide public comment. Surrounded by mountain passes and canyons, the city historically experiences strong Santa Ana winds during the fall and winter season with gusts up to 70 miles per hour. And over the last three years, our residents and businesses have experienced several Edison PSPS events significantly impacting public well-being and safety. At times, these power shutoff events have impacted over 25,000 households and businesses at periods of over twenty four consecutive hours, including major power loss events during the holidays at the end of last year.
We full heartedly appreciate the accessibility demonstrated by local representatives of Edison. However, in an effort to ensure immediate reliable electrical service, we respectfully urge the commission to mandate Edison harden their infrastructure in an expedited manner with a defined and accelerated schedule to target and harden circuits most impacted by PSPS events and that serve the greatest number of customers and that circuits and infrastructure in Santa Clarita be included in the expedited hardening plans and PSPS exception efforts as appropriate. This concludes my comments and I appreciate the opportunity to share our comments on this matter. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rice Holland. Your line is open.
Speaker 11
Hello. I hope you can hear me this time. Unfortunately, was watching on the website and the latency between that and the phone was a little bit off. So I appreciate that we're having this meeting here and CPUC, appreciate it. SCE, it's good for you to show up.
I unfortunately think this needs to be redone or at least the comment section from the public needs to be done at a later time with a longer comment period. So that way working class folks who should be probably working right now and probably can't really take time off to comment on this can actually participate. I think that was part of the reason why we had so many participants last time perhaps, but even if it wasn't, we definitely need to really open the door and allow a lot more communication on this. Quite honestly, all I'm hearing is still a whole lot of half solutions. I feel like the infrastructure issues are things that we've known about since I was a kid.
I've been in the area for almost thirty six years and quite honestly, we're way behind. Things needed to have been entrenched. Things needed
Speaker 11
to be as resistant. We know that there's winds. We know that there's fires. That's always been the case here. The fact that we're doing half measures to try to protect and work around them instead of using the most efficient and powerful technology we have to protect ourselves from these events entirely.
And part of the problem I think is really just the amount of profit that goes into and comes out of the company and how much that really ought to be banned. All profit is basically money that wasn't spent to fix the infrastructure and take care of these issues. It's kind of a big problem. Instead, that money, that profit ends up being used to lobby and try to fight to shield themselves from liability. So I think banning profits from SCE and PG and E for the next twenty years would probably be a good start.
Otherwise, they can just donate their assets and infrastructure to the State of California and we can just basically municipalize it. I feel like that's really the sort of solutions that we need. There's a memo coming from UCLA Public Policy Department that will be sent to CPUC and SCE and PG and E about the current use of power and the state of things. I think that was my ring. So I will send that along.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. So glad you were able to get back in. Operator, the next caller, please.
Speaker 13
Hello. Thank you, commissioners. My name is Jacqueline Eyre, and I am the Utilities Committee Chair for the Acton Town Council, and I am very grateful for this opportunity to address you. There is a lot that the Acton Town Council would like to say about Edison's performance in 2020 and its corrective action plan,
Speaker 13
a few things. First, Edison has reported that it was abnormal fall weather conditions in 2020 that drove its excessive PSPS activities. But you need to know that there was nothing abnormal about the fall weather conditions in 2020. In fact, for half of the year since 1998, rainfall in our area was at or below the rainfall levels that occurred in the 2020. In other words, what we experienced in 2020 will be the norm for us on average going forward.
Second, Edison keeps telling you that PSPS decisions are based on when windblown debris poses an ignition risk, which is 31 miles sustained, 46 miles per hour gust. However, these are not the de energization thresholds that Edison uses in Acton. In fact, on Thanksgiving Day, Edison cut power in Acton based on a 25 mile an hour de energization threshold, which is one reason why our community was so terribly impacted that day. This fact is shown clearly in Edison's post event report filed on December 11. They are not telling you the truth when they say they are using thirty one and forty six.
Third, a discovery response received from Edison just last week regarding their January PSPS activities reports that four fifty distribution infrastructure elements have been designated as high P2, with a failure potential within six months, particularly under windy conditions. Edison de energizes facilities based on circuit health. And in Acton, our circuits are not healthy, and we have paid for it because Edison cuts power in Acton at wind speeds that are much less than the 30 oneforty six threshold that they're telling you. Fourth, in a discovery response from Edison, we have learned that even when our distribution lines are replaced with covered conductor, Edison is still going to apply adjustments and multipliers that will result in lower wind speed PSPS thresholds enacted compared to other areas. These adjustments are based on factors that have nothing to do with okay, thank you.
I will submit this in writing, guess. There's a lot more to be said. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ayers.
Speaker 1
President Badger, there are no more speakers on the public comment telephone line.
Speaker 2
Okay. With that, we will close the public comment, and I want to thank everyone who has joined in the meeting today for calling in and watching and observing. I want to thank Edison for their participation and their information, and we look forward to a great deal of follow-up. As I said, time is of the essence. We appreciate your time and your effort very much.
So thank you all. That ends the meeting.
Speaker 1
Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.