CPUC Workshop - 2021-03-29
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California Public Utilities Commission
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 4
Hi, good morning, President Batcher, Commissioners, Chief Porter and IOU Partners. My name again is Tina Curry, Chief Deputy at CALoES. And I too appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion today and invitation to join to talk about the twenty twenty PSCS power or I'm sorry, Public Safety Power Shutoff Events or PSCS. This was a new thing for us in California, of course, a couple of years ago. And, it's imperative for CAL OES as the overarching coordinator of all things disasters and emergencies for the state to work closely with the CPUC and Cal Fire as well as our IOU partners to prepare for PFCS and ensure that our communities receive reliable and timely notifications prior to events.
And I do want to note that overall there's we saw a lot of improvements from 2019 to 2020. And I just really appreciate the partnership and the engagement to look critically at where things went well, but also where things can be improved. And certainly, there that's what we're here to do today is talk about, that small window, like you said, President, with which we have to prepare to make sure that not only are we sustaining the things that are going well or where we've reached a consistency and kind of a regularity in terms of our protocols, but also where we still have areas where we can improve. Really, it's our we're counting on this continued positive engagement that we've seen thus far to plan for and prepare and to, continuously improve on the CSPS. But more importantly, communities are counting on us, to make sure, California and many others have contended with a lot in 2020, historic fire season that followed and certainly some PSPS events were included in that.
But again, look forward to the discussion today and thoughtful input on how we can do even better and be better prepared. So thank you so much for the opportunity to participate.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, Chief Deputy Curry. And now I will turn to my fellow commissioner. Commissioner Guzman Aceves, would you like to make any remarks today?
Speaker 5
Thank you, President Bacher. I just maybe will give a highlight of a particular focus that I would like the speakers to touch upon, particularly the IOUs in hearing from their greater preparation and coordination with the telecommunications sector and the water providers in their areas. I think given this time where they could be prepared in coordinating some of the critical facilities that each of them depend upon for continuation of service, and what kind of planning has been done to really ensure that those services stay unaffected during these shutoffs? Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
Thank you, commissioner Guzman Aceves. Commissioner Charoma, would you like to make some remarks? Yes. Thank you, president Badger, and to you, administrative laws of Gao, the wildfire safety and enforcement staff for today's workshop for your work on the wildfire proceedings. Also, many thanks to Cal Fire and Cal OES for the sister agency partnerships.
Look forward to hearing the presentations today from the investor owned utilities about what they are doing, what has worked for them, what lessons learned to share. Also looking forward to hearing about their engagement with the access and functional needs community and to hear more about the outreach and survey efforts in this afternoon session. As you outlined, president Badger, it's very important that the investor only to not only internally reflect, but also pay attention to the work of the other IOUs and to learn from each other. So I look forward to the presentation today and learning myself. Thank you.
Thank you, commissioner Charoma. Commissioner Hauke, would you like to make some opening remarks?
Speaker 6
Thank you, president Badger. I'd like to thank you, the safety policy division, the safety and enforcement division, and wildfire fire Safety Division along with our Executive Director, Rachel Peterson, for your leadership on the wildfire and PSPS matters for the CPUC. I'm concerned about the impacts of PSPS on rate payers, in particular our most vulnerable rate payers as well as the possibility of wildfire in the absence of PSPS. These events cannot occur without attention to consequences and I understand that this balance is difficult to strike and that PSPS events seem to be increasing as climate change is worsening. So with those comments in mind, I look forward to listening and learning from today's presentation and thank you to everyone participating in today's workshop.
Again, I'm looking forward especially to the roundtable.
Speaker 7
Thank you. I want to acknowledge, as President Thatcher outlined, that there has been work done to reduce the size and the scope of PSPSs and there have been improvements. Nonetheless, it's critical that we continue to improve and have the utilities continue to fine tune their processes, make improvements. President Badger has been adopting the guidelines each year to make sure that we learn from prior years and we look forward to continuing to make these events happen not just as infrequently as possible, but as smoothly as possible. And as President Thatcher indicated, I also am very much looking forward to this afternoon sessions where we can hear from stakeholders.
I want to thank and acknowledge all the incredible engagement so far we've had from local governments, tribal governments, community based organizations, advocates and individual customers. Your engagement has been our most important means of understanding the impacts of PSPSs, so we can continue to respond with new guidelines. And I look forward to this afternoon's discussion as well as the morning discussion, but in particular hearing from our stakeholders in the public.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, Commissioner Rakshavan. Okay, we will now turn to our presentation. First this morning we will hear from Pacific Corp and we will be hearing from the President and CEO, Stefan Byrd. We will have about twenty minutes total for the presentation and discussion with members of the dais. My fellow dais members, please feel free to ask questions as they come up.
Sorry that we will be interrupting the presentation, but we have found that that's probably the best interactive way to stay on top of our questions in a timely manner. I will again remind people we're going to be on a clock, so please remind remember that as you're asking your questions and Pacific Core as you're answering and responding. Thank you very much. President and CEO, Byrd.
Speaker 8
Thank you very much. Good morning and thank you President Thatcher for the opportunity to be here today. Again for the record, I'm Stephane Byrd, President and CEO of Pacific Power. I'd also like to extend my appreciation to Commissioner Guzman Eceves and Commissioner Rexhofen, Commissioner Schiroma and Commissioner Hauke as well as the CalFar Chief Porter and Chief Deputy Director Curry, who joined us today as well as Daniel Berlin for co hosting today's meeting. We're honored to be here with our industry colleagues and partners today from San Diego Gas and Electric and Pacific Gas and Electric to share best practices and lessons learned from last year's public safety power shutoff events and to listen to feedback from regulators and the public.
Pacific Power is an organization that's committed to continuous improvement and we share in the commission's desire to reduce the impacts of public safety power shutoffs. One way that we're achieving that aim is through our direct partnership in community. Through our community resilience program we started in 2019, we're working with local emergency managers to identify key projects to uphold critical infrastructure during any time there's a service interruption. And that includes things from energy storage technical assessments to portable backup generation grants and includes a portfolio of resources for communities seeking to enhance their emergency management and disaster preparedness capabilities. It's partnerships and programs like this that are a key aspect of a resilient community.
We certainly understand it's no small matter to consider turning the power off for an entire community to ensure they have the support they need if such an event were to occur. I'm going to now turn over to my colleague, David Lucas, who serves as the Vice President of Wildfire Safety for Pacific Power, and he will give you a more comprehensive summary of our twenty twenty PSPS actions and post event analysis. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Yes. Thank you, Stephane. Good morning, President Batcher, members of the commission, representatives from Cal Fire and Cal OES. As mentioned, my name is David Lucas. I'm the Vice President of Wildfire Safety.
Recognizing we only have twenty minutes for the presentation and the Q and A session today, I'll attempt to be thorough, but yet quickly move through our slides to allow for time for questions at the end of the presentation. So next slide, please. So real quickly, just to highlight the Pacific Corp. Service territory in Northern California. The territory extends across approximately 11,000 square miles, where we serve roughly 45,000 customers with 63 substations, 2,520 miles of distribution line and 800 miles of transmission line.
Of that, approximately 1,200 miles or approximately 36% of the overhead lines are located within the High Fire Threat District. That correlates to roughly eight fifty miles of overhead distribution line and three fifty miles of transmission line. Next slide please. So current PSPS plans at Pacific Corp. Are limited to the Tier three areas.
And as you can see on the graphic on the left side of this slide, further it is further broken down into five specific PSPS zones. The reason we break it down into further five zone or further into five zones is to minimize customer impact. And if you look at the table on the right side of this slide, you can see that we have approximately 10,000 customers within the identified PSPS areas with, the majority of those customers located in the Mount Shasta area, but also a significant portion over 2,000 customers located in the Weed area. And that's important for today's discussion as we look back at the results in 2020, which I will touch on with the next slide, please. So similar to all of our colleagues in the utility industry, we intend to use the PSPS as a measure of last resort.
We have protocols in place to that are designed to minimize the frequency and impact on our customers from PSPS events. We notify our customers based on forecast though, yet we make decisions to de energize based on actual real time conditions. We've also created circuit segmentation plans for all of our Tier three circuits. And prior to making any decision to execute a PSPS, we review current system conditions, vegetation work plans and we engage with our critical customers. We understand local suppression that may be available, understand any conditions that may be present in the communities that we serve from an emergency responder perspective that would potentially influence our decision.
So if we look back at 2020, we effectively had three public facing events, two of which were, I guess, for lack of a better description, were false positives with one event on September 13 actually ending up in a de energization event. The de energization event on September 13 affected approximately 3,000 customers with a total duration of just under eight hours. And this event affected two distribution circuits that I'll provide a little more detail on the next slide. So the two circuits impacted in 2020 by the PSPS were Circuit 5G83 and Circuit 5G45.
Speaker 3
can see on the left side of the slide, Circuit 5 Gs-eighty 3 impacted nineteen seventy six customers with just under 17,000 or 1,700 of those customers being residential, approximately two sixty three being commercial industrial, three medically sensitive and 17 in other classifications. Circuit 5 Gs 45, there was a total customer impact of five eighty one with four forty four of those customers being the residential classifications.
Speaker 2
please. Right. Go on. Go ahead, please. Okay.
I'm reminded of the question that you asked from Kelsey Edison, and I'll ask it here. And that is just briefly step through the actual protocols that you go through to to decide that a PSPS must be invoked.
Speaker 3
Okay. I think I may actually cover off on that a bit in one of the other slides, or actually let me see here. Maybe we back up to the previous slide that had the
Speaker 3
Right there. Okay. So with respect to actually an acting PSPS event, similar to our colleagues in the industry, we have developed certain indices based on nationally recognized fire indexes. And we look at those along with the weather forecast and determine based on that forecast and that's the challenge for all utilities and that it is actually a forecast, a weather forecast. But we evaluate those indices.
We also review our internal system status, our vegetation work plans. We engage with local emergency responders. We evaluate historical fire history. We look at any current emergencies or situations in the communities in which we are contemplating a PSPS to ensure that we don't make the situation worse by de energizing the power during that time frame. So all of those factors are evaluated.
And then we have additional internal discussions. And then as the time nears contingent upon feedback we get from local field resources that we deploy, as well as continuous feedback we received from the local emergency response community. That's what leads us to ultimately make the decision as to whether or not a de energization will occur. The challenge here for us and for everyone in the industry is that, our initial planning and decision making is based on a weather forecast as touched on early on by President Badger. Is that helpful and answer your question, Commissioner?
Speaker 3
So maybe now yes. So lessons learned, this is appropriate timing with respect to this hearing today. The biggest lessons that we took away from those three public facing events in 2020 is really about communication. And it's communication that we have with local emergency services, community stakeholders, as well as the actual end use customers. And from those lessons learned, do have plans to continue improve upon our notification and documentation of events to increase that communication amongst the various departments within the company and with our external stakeholders.
Access to GIS data through shape files will be made available during notification to public safety partners. And we plan to improve upon the company website to include weather forecast data to improve transparency on a potential PSPS event. And then my next several slides, I'll provide more detail on a couple of other areas around continuous improvement both on emergency management front as well as our weather forecasting capability. Next slide please. So if I can draw your attention to this slide, I mean really it has been a journey starting '19.
We are committed at Pacific Power to deploy a continuous improvement model both as it relates to our ability to communicate with the affected stakeholders as well as our ability to more accurately and precisely predict the situations in which a PSPS event may be required. And so on that front, if I can get you to look at the 2021, we are making material advancements in our weather prediction capability. We recently brought on board a Chief Meteorologist in 2021 with extensive utility experience and being and predictive weather capability and PSPS forecasting. We also will be adding additional meteorologists to the staff. And we will have in operation prior to the twenty twenty one wildfire season, a wildfire or the worst model for better prediction capabilities.
And then going forward in 2022, recognizing that this is a continuous improvement journey, we will have in service a high performance computing cluster, so that we will be able to leverage machine learning and impacts based forecasting. And then we'll be on that same continuous improvement journey and refinement of our potential fire indices and improve weather forecasting by expanding the Mesonet that we will be utilizing to predict the most and more extreme events that may result in a PSPS event. I mean at the end of the day, our goal is to minimize to the greatest extent possible the disruption that results from false positives, while continuing to take steps to protect public safety utilizing this tool of last resort. Next slide, please. So going back to stakeholder engagement and further improvements.
We also brought into the organization the a new Director of Emergency Management brought in just this month, actually. This individual is going to be responsible for Pacific Corp's overall strategy to improve training, communication and response to PSPS event coordination. We also plan to further expand our emergency management team in 2021 to provide additional community outreach and 20 fourseven monitoring capability. And then lastly, we plan to identify communities beyond the Tier two and Tier three areas to identify locations to hold additional wildfire preparedness workshops.
Speaker 2
slide I have a quick question, Maribel. Sorry to interrupt you. As you're adding to your team, have you considered has the company considered hiring also a individual or an individual who has the whole the sole responsibility, excuse me, of working with the AFN community, the medical baseline community, the critical care facilities. I know this is a great concern of the communities that all too often in the IOUs we've seen that there is a person who has perhaps that responsibility, but that person wears many hats. So it's not a devoted person or FTE specifically.
Have you given any consideration to that?
Speaker 3
Not specifically, President Batra. However, as I mentioned, when we as we bring this new individual on and we continue to assess our internal capabilities, I mean, do have, as you mentioned, certain full time employees within the organization that typically are dedicated to our AFN type customers. And to my knowledge, they did do a fairly decent job at least based on the feedback we got last year in engaging with that community. But certainly, as we look to improve upon our plans going forward, that's something that we would certainly take under consideration.
Speaker 2
I would appreciate that. One final question from me. And that is you talked about and described your fragmentation of your circuitry and some of your efforts to harden the circuit. What kind of backup power do you currently use at your substations?
Speaker 3
Okay. Next slide, please. So and this touches a bit on that topic, President Badger, with respect to limiting or reducing the customer impact. Pacific Power does currently have a community resiliency program that includes a portfolio of resources. And currently it's really two specific areas, technical assessments to help the communities evaluate potential costs and benefits of adding energy storage or associated technologies to critical facilities.
Applications are currently being accepted for that portion of the program. And then assessments are going to be initiated on a first come first served basis. The second program to help minimize that impact on the community that we were discussing is really around grants that are available for the purchase of portable renewable backup generators and installation of energy storage at critical facilities. Currently, the grant requests are going to be accepted through July through November this year. We have approximately $400,000 of available funding in 2021.
And we will continue to work with local emergency management through our service territory to identify potential projects. One of the forms that we utilize for that process is the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board, which we have folks from our organization as well as all the other external stakeholders involved during those discussions to help identify specific locations that these types of programs may help address or minimize some of those impacts.
Speaker 2
Can we drill down just a minute there on two things? What is the per unit cost of the batteries like the one that's shown there? And how much of the grant will cover that cost? And is that your only backup battery that you're offering to your customers?
Speaker 3
That is one. So I mean, we're I mean, just quite frankly, I mean, we're still at the early stages of this aspect of our wildfire mitigation plan. The grants will cover some of those battery type backup power that are shown on this slide. I do not I'll have to get back to you. I do not have the specific cost on a dollar per kilowatt basis, for example, of what those costs.
Mostly targeting though towards the low income or the care customers within the PDZs.
Speaker 2
Just concerned about $400,000 is a bucket of money, but you have 5,000 folks in part of your territory that were turned off. You have 2,000 I don't I don't recall on the slide, the medical baseline, but it seems to me just intuitively that $400,000 isn't going to go very far. But so I was just wondering what the per unit cost is. The other thing I'm a little concerned about is how long does it take to get one of these backup batteries to a customer Because applying in July through November, that's the height of fire season. So they would be applying.
At the same time, they might be getting shut off. So how long will the distribution the supply chain and the distribution take?
Speaker 3
Correct. We'll have to get back to you on those specific questions around the supply chain, recognizing that this is a 2021 pilot. I would however, like to direct if we look at the table on the top right of this particular slide, as I mentioned on some of the other material, we have roughly 10,000 customers in the PDZ zones that may potentially be affected. And then you can see a breakout of the total number of customers based on Low Income Life Support Medical or AFN. So although I certainly understand the concern you expressed around the overall total funding level, I think our scope and scale with the customers that may need this assistance most may be smaller for Pacific Power than some of the other utilities.
But certainly great questions that we'll need to get back to you on.
Speaker 2
And thank you for bringing my attention to the chart. It's pretty small, so I'm squinting my eyes to see it. But thank you for I
Speaker 2
I would like to know your timeframe for distribution of backup batteries and how long that logistics, if you will, will take between Pacific Corp and their customers because you operate in a very high fire danger area as we all know well. So thank you.
Speaker 7
if I could pile on the this is Commissioner Rexhaven, the questions you're responding to. Just in addition to that, when you do respond, if you could tell us the type of backup devices that you have in mind? Are these ones that provide backup power for an appliance for a few hours or are they storage systems that provide backup for an entire home? Or what are we what kinds of backup batteries are we talking about?
Speaker 3
Excellent. So if I understand the question, we'll get back to you on the actual capacity of the emergency devices that we're talking about.
Speaker 7
Right. Because there's a variety, some are designed just to provide backup power for two or three hours and enough capacity to keep an appliance running like an oxygen tank or a CPAP or something and others provide much greater capacity for home or major appliances in a home for several hours. So that would be interesting. We would want to know that as
Speaker 3
Okay, excellent. Thank you. And so I won't read through all of the bullets on this slide, but really what it's intended to convey is that Pacific Power plans to continue its focus on its wildfire mitigation plan, specifically the plan that was approved by the commission in 2020, with the overall effort and goals to minimize both scope and scale of potential PSPS events. And that can only occur through continued focus on customer preparedness, situational awareness, asset inspections and grid hardening. Again, won't read through each of the bullets, but you can see that we are focusing on in 2021 and the future replacement of bare conductor with covered conductor, replacement or reinforcement of wood poles, installation of additional system automation equipment and replacement of small diameter conductor beginning in 2022.
And so that concludes my presentation and we'll turn it back to the commission for any further questions.
Speaker 2
I think there is a question that hasn't been answered yet, David, that Commissioner Guzman Aceves started with. And I won't repeat it for her, but it has to do with your communications with the telco, companies as well as, servicing the water water and municipalities. Martha, do you want to re ask your question?
Speaker 5
Oh, thank you, president Baxter. Yes. Just looking at that last slide, actually, what is that you did talk about but is not quite covered there, is this planning in coordination with the critical facilities in your area and the first responders. And particularly with the focus of today in the FM community, the need has been really reiterated in addition obviously to having that in home backup power is the need to actually be able to continue to communicate. And can you talk about what you're doing to really be in coordination with your local telecommunication providers?
Speaker 3
So in our previous efforts, and I guess first let me say, I may not be able to provide a specific response to that question on regarding a specific provider or a specific location. But what I can say is that during the twenty nineteen-twenty twenty timeframe, we held numerous public meetings both with the local emergency responders. We held workshops. We reached out directly to those types of providers in the community, getting them to engage on the topic. And as I hopefully highlighted in the presentation today, we plan to make continued improvement on that front by the addition of additional resources within Pacific Power to continue that outreach, to continue that coordination.
And I believe that through enhancement of the emergency management organization along with enhancement of our weather forecasting that will hopefully close that gap if there is any gap.
Speaker 2
Okay. We are at 09:45. Are there any other or is there a final question? I'll defer to others who haven't asked a question yet. Thanks.
Speaker 6
This is Darcy Hauck. I just wanted to ask if you could briefly talk about your tribal coordination and consultation with the tribes in your territory.
Speaker 3
Okay. Good question. Yes. So we did make outreach earlier during this process. And it's my understanding that we do have members of the tribe as part of our Wildfire Safety Advisory Board committees, where they hold routine meetings.
And I don't have any other specific feedback or concerns at this time with respect to that particular stakeholder.
Speaker 2
be helpful if you when you're giving us other information that we've asked for, Mr. Lucas, if you could also give us some more detail about your communication with the tribe and any individual consultation that you're having with the tribes, not just the overall PSPS meetings and of the larger group, but specifically what are you doing with the individual tribes in your service territory.
Speaker 2
Okay. Any other final questions? Chief Deputy Curry or Chief Porter, any questions of Pacific Corp?
Speaker 2
You bet. Okay. With that, thank you very much Pacific Corp. From Talhara had his hand up. I didn't I couldn't see it.
Okay. Please go forward, please.
Speaker 13
Do you have any percentages of the replacement that you've already done? You gave some targets for 2021 numbers, for a pole replacement, for example, your target this year is only 3% of the overall target. So just curious how much you've already done? And then the second part related to the infrastructure hardening is, you include asset health and the age of the infrastructure in your PSPS decision making?
Speaker 3
First question, I don't have the specific numbers on getting some feedback. So apologize for that. So I don't have the specific numbers on percent complete. I mean, think initially, given that we are operating under our second approved plan and as we've continued to enhance our capability to assess the risk and develop risk models, like highlighted in the most recent 2021 update filing, there has been some shifting in priorities with respect to hardening. It has taken a little bit
Speaker 3
One of the other efforts not highlighted here today though in our 2021 update filing, we do point out all of those specific numbers that you were asking about. And we can go back and pull some of those out if that would be helpful. Now with respect to the last question, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, when we began to evaluate a PSPS based on a longer term weather forecast, we do look at overall asset health, number of outstanding system conditions, status of vegetation work on the system, as well as those other items that I highlighted and ultimately making that decision. Recognizing that a number of the risks that we're attempting to mitigate are very challenging, especially in the context of vegetation.
Speaker 2
Is there any follow-up, Chief Berlin? Folks are going to have to speak up because I can't see everybody on my landscape. Okay.
Speaker 5
Sorry, President Baxter, just real quickly on that last point that Mr. Lucas made on the status of vegetation. Do you a more specific example of that? Obviously, that's a big focus for all of us right now. Are you saying you look at putting additional areas into shutoff if their vegetation management has not met a certain threshold?
Speaker 3
Sorry about that. No, my comment was in the context or relative to the PSPS zones that I highlighted in the presentation.
Speaker 5
Right. I'm just trying to connect it to when you say you're using the vegetation your status on vegetation management, what can you give an example of how you're using that input?
Speaker 3
Sure. Yes. I mean, so when you think about vegetation management across a very large system, right, it's an ongoing continuous effort or work effort to ensure that vegetation is not only in compliance with the regulatory obligations, but also in a situation or in
Speaker 3
that minimizes the overall wildfire risk. It's not, as I'm sure you're aware, something that can be completed and then you can forget about it. So for my example, if we believe we may be at risk in an area of a PSPS implementation, we dispatch additional vegetation crews to the field to begin, I hate to use the word last minute evaluation, but pre event evaluation of the vegetation, because those things can change relative to the last time the scheduled work was performed. So that's what I intended to convey.
Speaker 3
And this is Chief Porter. Just to confirm, that's not in lieu of doing the proactive vegetation management work that is ongoing, correct? It's just a response to an event that may be happening and further tuning your process. Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 3
correct. Thank you. And thank you, Chief Berlant. Thank you, President Badger for indulging us.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. That's what we're all here for today, Chief Porter. Any final questions before we move on to our next presentation? Mr. Badger, just an observation in the grid hardening, four four thousand three hundred and twenty six poles that identified as needing replacement in 2021, only replacing a 128 poles.
And so in the follow on from the utility, do you have a better understanding in the context of that number? I imagine there's a risk assessment that's done for the panoply of things that are being done, and we heard about some of that today. But it just looked like a such a small number compared to the magnitude of the poles that these are facing.
Speaker 3
It is recognizing that we're still fairly early in the overall wildfire mitigation planning and scoping process. We recently, as submitted in our 2021 update, have improved upon our overall risk assessment and mapping that will guide us and direct us on the asset hardening type projects that we'll complete over the next two, three and six years, for example.
Speaker 2
Okay. With that, I think we will move on to our next presentation. I want to thank Pacific Corp for your presentation, and we look very much forward to the follow-up answers to some of our questions. So thank you, Stefan and David. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
Okay. Well, we're running a little bit behind now. We are now going to be the presentation will now be turned to SDG and E and President Bruce Falkman will be giving that presentation. We have about thirty minutes for the presentation and discussion. So just want everyone to be mindful of that.
We're running a little bit behind already. Thank you, President Falkman.
Speaker 15
Okay. Thank you, President Batra. Good morning. My name is Bruce Volkmann. I'm the President and Chief Financial Officer for San Diego Gas and Electric.
Thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to address SDG and E's execution of twenty twenty PSPS events. John Jenkins, our Vice President of Operations, will provide more details regarding last year's events and the specific circumstances we observed, impacts on our system. But I'll provide a little bit of background, if I may, in particular, how we prepare for an upcoming season. The extreme weather events our region experienced last year were relatively unprecedented. We had 11 Santa Ana wind events that resulted in red flag warnings, of which five required a PSPS response.
In executing PSPS, the safety of our customers, employees and the communities we serve is always our highest priority. And the way we prepare, for those events can be broken into four categories really. We prepare assets, we prepare ourselves at SDG and E, We prepare our community safety partners and above all, prepare our customers. Let me touch on preparing our assets. As I think all of you are aware, we have an extensive weather monitoring station system in our service territory.
We've added about 30 additional weather stations over the past year. But I think the particular improvement I'd like to highlight there is that we've also moved to a thirty second sampling interval, and this gives us much more detailed information. And for example, we can distinguish between, a limited gust situation versus continuous high wind situations. We are using, artificial intelligence based predictive models to increase the accuracy of our forecasts. We continue to enhance our vegetation risk index.
We are using human factors engineering and human machine interface to help integrate all of this information into our PSPS management. And we think all of that adds up to a much more successful ability to respond to an event. When I look at our fixed assets, I did want to highlight a few changes that we've made that we think are also very significant risk mitigation factors. We undergrounded about 30 miles in 2020 for wildfire and PSPS mitigation purposes exclusively. This is at the end of the day, the only way to really, we believe, achieve nearly 100% confidence that we've eliminated the risk of wildfire.
But we use, kind of a cost based approach and our the way we invest in falling conductor protection, covered conductors, our traditional fire hardening, our own private LTE network is being built out to improve communications. We're doing all of these things to help ensure our infrastructure is as safe as possible. One area that we've particularly pioneered recently is the use of drones to inspect our assets. It gives us an entirely different perspective. And I'm particularly excited about this one because of the way we've been able to leverage technology and use automated image processing to eventually, we hope, eliminate human intervention in evaluating what these photos reveal.
In the next category, I wanted to talk about preparing ourselves. The COVID pandemic was pretty unique. So the main thing that we focused on here was having a level one, two, three approach to level 100% virtual EOC, level two, where individuals can report to a company location if they're having connectivity issues, Level three, certain key physicians respond in person to an EOC physically to manage events if those if the circumstances ever warrant. In particular, our training and exercise plan included two commander trainings and workshops, seven emergency operations center responder trainings and three tabletop exercises. We believe that sets us up very well for success this past season and we'll use
Speaker 15
The third category is preparing our community safety partners. We hosted four public safety power workshops with attendance from fire chiefs, emergency management agencies in San Diego County focused on PSPS, wildfire and COVID nineteen response plans. We continue to partner, very excited about our partnership with CAL FIRE and the San Diego Sheriff's Department and provided training in concert with those organizations for standardized evacuation plans and protocols countywide. We coordinate weekly with the leadership of Cal OES, Cal Fire and CPUC in preparation for wildfire seasons. The category, I'm sorry, the fourth category and most important is preparing our customers.
Prior to last year's fire season, we developed a few technology tools, a PSPS mobile application, mobile phone alerts, electronic roadside signage in PSPS areas, radio spots for real time updates and other techniques to help ensure that we had the best partnership model with our customers so they could understand what was coming. All medical baseline customers who experienced a PSPS event in 2019 were offered a portable renewable generator and an additional 1,200 customers were subsidized by SDG and E in the HFTD. We continue to use these advanced stakeholder communications, remote emergency operation center tours and outreach events to align preparedness and it includes four webinars this past season to inform customers how to be prepared for the threat of wildfire. Over a dozen stakeholders in the wildfire community organized five drive through wildfire safety fairs to communicate for those most prone to PSPS, and we implemented drive through community resource centers to operate safely during PSPS in combination with the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Maintaining a close collaboration with the county of the office emergency Emergency Services and County Health Departments is also a priority.
We continue to integrate feedback from our community leaders through our Wildfire Safety Community Advisory Council. In closing, I wanted to assure you that our commitment to the safety of our customers and the communities we serve is unwavering. We continue to work with state leaders, yourselves, agencies and other customers to help identify and implement the right solutions to adequately address and minimize the impacts of PSPS. Continuous innovation and improvement are a hallmark of our company culture and will continue to be certainly as long as I'm with the company. I look forward to answering any questions you may have and hearing from members of the public.
And now, we can either take a couple of questions or I'll turn it over to John Jenkins a more specific analysis of 2020, the SPS event.
Speaker 2
Bruce, I have a couple of questions real quickly before we move on. You said you're underground 30 miles was the lines. I think that I heard that correctly.
Speaker 2
Do you for the next for 2021, 2022, and this might be in your wildfire mitigation plan, I'm not certain, but how many more miles of undergrounding do you plan for?
Speaker 15
We will continue to underground. Being a relatively new program, I think we're anticipating completing actually somewhat fewer miles, about 25 miles in 2021 as we ramp this up, but 80 miles in the next year. I think that's approximately what we're targeting in our WMP.
Speaker 2
Okay. And of the medical baseline customers that you provided portable remote backup generation to, have you completed the full list that I know you all have testified before us on before. Have you completed the full list of medical baseline customers that have asked for or would like to have some kind of backup for their home?
Speaker 15
I appreciate the question, commissioner. I'll let John speak to the details, but I will tell you, we did offer a generator. Many of our customers actually don't take it because they already had alternate facilities aligned. So there's a range of approaches that may be appropriate, but maybe I'll let John touch on your more detailed question with regard to completeness.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you. I'll turn the mic over to others for any questions that you might have. Bruce? Mr.
If
Speaker 7
I could enter just on that one, when John, when you answer, I heard Bruce and just to follow-up on what President Badger said, I thought I heard you say that you provided a renewable generator or a backup generator to all customers who were affected by PSPS events and then you were subsidizing an additional 1,200. Is that correct?
Speaker 15
That's yes, that is correct. We renewable generation to all the medical best baseline affected. Not all of them accepted it because I think they already had potentially other backup means. But yes, and 1,200 generators were subsidized among the HFTD. I don't think that 1,200 includes situations where we have, for example, outstanding rebates now.
So we're aware of how many customers have downloaded the document that's necessary. Some of those may still be pending in terms of processing.
Speaker 7
But is this a rolling list? In other words, you had five events in this last year. Do you expand the list of everyone you're outreaching to include that broader set of customers who are affected in 2020? Is that am I clear about that question?
Speaker 15
You are clear. I'll let John speak to it in a little bit of detail. But I think it's probably fair to say we also revisit the design of these programs as we move forward to help ensure they're as effective as possible. It may not necessarily mean that that's the perfect approach. If you've ever been affected, you receive an offer, but it's certainly a place to start.
Speaker 7
I would just say, and then I'll move on is, it's worth responding or outreaching multiple times even if a customer might not pick up on the offer in one year before continuing to make that offer available going forward because they may be in a different situation the next year.
Speaker 6
Okay. Just have one quick question going back also if you can touch on tribal consultation as well as how you address customers that may need electricity for pumping water if they use wells, whether they were provided backup generation or how we're able to coordinate with those customers that again needed electricity from water.
Speaker 15
Of course. Of course. We'll speak to that as we go through John's presentation.
Speaker 16
And there we go. As Bruce mentioned, my name is John Jenkins. I'm San Diego Gas and Electric's Vice President of Electric System Operations and Wildfire Mitigation. And we'll go ahead and jump right in here in the essence of time, so we'll go to the first slide, please. As Bruce mentioned, we had 11 red flag warning events what was our twenty twenty fire season, even though it extended into 2021.
There's a lot of unique things about this. One is the number. We typically average around three to four red flag warning events in a season, so this was obviously a much larger number than we're used to. In addition to that, the first couple of events started in September and then finished up with a couple of events in mid January. This is a longer period than we're used to as well.
We're traditionally late October, early November for red flag warning events. The wildfires in 2003 were in October. The wildfires in 2007 were in October. Our largest PSPS event up to 2020 was 10/31/2019. So it is odd for us to have events in September through January.
One more unique thing and that will be the focus for the rest of the discussion on this slide is the December event ended up being our largest event by far that we've ever had. And SDG and E hasn't changed its decision making parameters or expanded the scope of PSPS. It's simply due to the magnitude of the event. And going through some of the statistics related to this event, if you look at we have two twenty weather stations in our service territory and most in the High Fire Threat District obviously. If you look at the 20 weather stations that saw the highest gusts, if you take the average of the gusts that we're seeing at those weather stations, the average was 71 miles per hour.
This is an extremely strong event. We had 60 mile an hour winds at Del Mar for those of you familiar with San Diego just to put that in perspective. Of our two twenty weather stations, 126, so over half of them, experienced their ninety ninth percentile wind speed, meaning they only see that wind speed 1% of the time. And then probably this is the most impressive statistic that a lot of these weather stations have been around for the better part of a decade, 43 of them, so 20% saw their records broke on that particular wind event. So very, very strong wind event with peaks of a peak gust of 94 miles an hour at our Silhouette weather station.
Prior to the event, we notified 95,000 customers. We ended up de energizing 73,000 customers. We opened up 10 community resource centers and provided information and services to almost 2,700 cars in the drive thru format due to the pandemic. So extremely proud of the team with their ability to set this up and execute on the community resource centers given the conditions. Next slide please.
Some additional statistics related to the events, you can see the peak wins on the top left. So there's obviously strong wins in every event, but to give you an idea of the widespread nature of the December '4 event going over one graph to the right there, 73,000 customers ended up being de energized and you can see the other four events were 49,395. 15,300 was our kind of our typical strong event in the past. That was more of an event representative of what's happened in years past. But we did find 14 things that needed to be corrected or repaired prior to safely reenergizing the circuits on that December event and a handful of other issues in the other two events in the later part of December.
The average outage duration, SDG and E really makes these decisions to de energize customers on a segment by segment basis. So looking at the top graph up there, it took 80 segments to de energize the 73,000 customers, so around 900 customers per segment. So we look at each individual segment. We look at the wind speeds. We take observer reports, any other information that we have related to that area to make a decision.
So we can really take customers off at the appropriate time to mitigate the risk and keep them out as little time as possible. And then we use the same sort of methodology with looking in a segment segment basis to re energize the customers. So this kept the average duration even though it was a three day event, the average customer was out thirty four hours on the largest events. Our typical events in the past have been around twenty four hours for larger events. And then in our higher elevations, we have customers that will be the first to see the winds, but they will also be the last to have the winds leave the area.
And so there's a very small population of customers that end up being the longest duration outages and for that largest event it was just over sixty hours. Next slide please.
Speaker 16
more thing that we would like to show the group here is we are seeing an unfortunate trend. These are three of our typical windy areas. So prone to PSPS events, they're in the communities of Valley Center, Alpine and Cuyamaca. Going back to again the weather data that we've had for nearly a decade at these weather stations, looking at the number of occurrences of high wind events, we are seeing an increasing trend and thus the 11 Red Flag Warning events in 2020. But looking back over time, you can see the red lines are the trend lines for the number of occurrences that we're seeing at some of our windy areas.
Speaker 16
we doing to mitigate the impacts? Obviously, we've been doing system hardening for the past ten plus years with our transmission system and distribution system. In 2020, we hardened two forty six miles of electric transmission and distribution lines. We also used some of these programs to help mitigate the impact, I'm going to go into greater detail on the generator programs and microgrids in just a minute. But in 2020, we installed 30 new weather stations.
Every time we go through a fire season, we identify areas that are covered by one weather station and we find out that it would be beneficial to have an additional weather station or weather stations to further divide this area up because there's different things going on with the climates in those areas and this allows us to make better more refined decisions and reduce the impact to customers. There's sectionalizing devices associated with those weather stations so these two really go hand in hand and in 2020 this saved impacts to 5,773 customers by new devices that we installed on the system. In a similar vein, we find areas that we can transfer portions of those circuits to adjacent circuits where maybe they aren't seeing the same weather impacts as sort of some upstream customers are on that same circuit. So we identified 156 customers that we were able to ship to different areas and keep them safely with power during some
Speaker 16
Hopefully, will cover some of the questions on the generators that were coming up. Bruce mentioned that every medical baseline customer in 2019 that experienced a PSPS event we offered a portable generator to in 2020, We ended up deploying thirteen thirty four of those battery storage units. We did all this by September 1, so we were able to get them out to the customers before they needed them. We did have an 85 acceptance rate, so very high acceptance rate for these units. The majority of the reasons for people that didn't accept them were they already had generation backup at their homes.
And I believe it was Commissioner Reischoff that asked a question about, we will make sure that they get offered the units again if they turned us down the first go around. We're planning to increase this to over 2,000 deployments in 2021. This should cover every medical baseline customer. Obviously, we had an increased number this year, so this should cover every medical baseline customer that had an outage in 2019 or 2020. Bruce also mentioned we had a generator assistance program, which is really a rebate program where qualifying HFPD customers get to purchase a small portable generator where SDG and E will rebate 50% of the cost of that.
If you're a qualifying low income customer, it's 75% rebate, which ends up being about $150 out of pocket. So it's a very good deal to provide a small portable generator to customers that may need it. What we have here pictured is our whole home generator. We have certain customers that just with the cost effectiveness of doing hardening, we have certain pockets where we have 10 miles of distribution line that would need to be hardened to help reduce the impacts to a very small number of customers. Let's just say it's 10.
It's actually a more cost effective solution to provide them with back end generation to their home to mitigate the impacts as opposed to hardening the entire line. So that was a very successful program in 2020. And then our five microgrids. The number on the previous slide was three forty eight. I always have to elaborate.
It's not the number of customers with the microgrids, it's the types of customers that they are. The majority of these locations are sort of the community town centers if you will and so they provide vital goods and services to the residents in the entire surrounding area. Things like schools, urgent care, grocery stores, gas stations, some of those essential goods and services that people need keeps those areas with power during these events. And so we have five microgrids operating in 2021 I mean, sorry, in 2020.
Speaker 2
Perhaps just for a second, this is Maribel. Of those five microgrids, backup generation is currently, I'm assuming natural gas, but your note says that renewable is an option for 2021. What type of renewable are you offering or hoping to install and where are you on that?
Speaker 16
the five sites, energy storage or energy storage in conjunction with PV panels. And there's a couple of different types of energy storage too. We have traditional lithium ion. We also have a lithium or I'm sorry, a flow battery as another technology that we're exploring. Just the reasons that they weren't ready for 2020 with the renewable option, There were a lot of supply chain issues due to COVID in the 2020 and so they were energized with fossil fuel generation, but we're getting all of the infrastructure installed that I just mentioned to have them renewable for fire season in 2021.
Hopefully that answered your question.
Speaker 16
go ahead two slides here. We're continuing to leverage technology. Bruce alluded to it a little bit, but when we first installed our weather stations over a decade ago, it great for us to have the largest wind gust seen in every ten minute interval and allowed us to make great decisions, but we were what we were finding out is there's a lot that can happen in ten minutes. And so we may get a wind gust recorded in a ten minute interval that said 60 miles an hour. That would lead us to make a decision to reduce the risk for that area and possibly de energize the infrastructure.
But what we're finding out is with thirty second intervals, we do have areas that we'll see one gust in a ten minute period that was, let's say, you know, 55 miles per hour, but then the rest of the REIT in that ten minute interval were well below 40. So it causes us to make different decisions and a lot of cases keep customers energized during these conditions. So every over the last two years, every weather station now has the ability to for us to obtain thirty second weather reads. We've also we've had our fire potential index in play for a long time, but this also allows us to keep reduce the impacts of PSPS and keep customers energized because if you look at a red flag warning area, it's a very broad wide area. Our FPI is broken down into smaller chunks of area within our service territory and it's much more detailed.
It takes into account live fuel moisture, dead fuel moisture, relative humidity, the greenness of the grasses in addition to wind speeds. And really that's how we were able to I'm going to say only, we don't want to minimize the impact of PSPS, but we only used public safety power shutoff in five of the 11 Red Flag Warning events because in many of those our fire potential index was elevated but not extreme and therefore causes us to make different decisions in those cases. I'll go ahead and move on to the next slide please. So what does this mean in terms of numbers? Again, the December '4 event was a very unique event for us.
All of the generator programs, microgrids, undergrounding, those sorts of things led to a reduction of 7,302 customers, but obviously it was a very large event. And with that sort of impact and strength of the event, you end up not being able to leverage your situational awareness tools as much. It's just so windy and commissions are so bad everywhere. FPI was an extreme everywhere. We're not using thirty second data as much because it's well beyond the thresholds of what we consider safe to keep energized.
But if you look at more of our traditional public safety power shutoff events, we'll use the December '9 example here, we de energized 15,528 customers, but had we not had our fire potential index or the ability to get thirty second wind gust reads, would have been an additional 22,860 customers that would have been de energized. So just wanted to show how our tools are utilized in different scenarios here with different events. We can go on
Speaker 16
We obviously can mitigate the impacts of customers with keeping their lights on which we talked about. We can mitigate the impacts by at least providing them facilities that provide crucial goods and services such as the example of the microgrids. Another way for us to mitigate the impact is really to communicate and collaborate with our customers directly, our public safety partners and our access and functional need community based organizations to make sure people are getting the information they need to help navigate these events safely. Bruce alluded to some of our new technology that we're using with our PSPS mobile app. Obviously, people are getting phone calls, texts, e mails in eight languages, which is being expanded to 22 languages in 2021, the roadside signage.
Continuing to work with our tribal communities and our first responders. We do this for the entire off season and it's not just during these events, but obviously we do a lot of communication during the events as well. Over the past year and a half we've really expanded our access and functional need network in a partnership with two eleven San Diego and two eleven Orange County. This past fire season we were able to reach over 700 community based organizations through this network. And then also in with our communication with our public safety partners over 2,000 plus touch points every event.
And this is some feedback we get from the outreach with our public safety partners. 88% of the people that are receiving these notifications feel that it is either good or great. So, we feel really good about the work that we're doing with communications, collaboration with customers, public safety partners, access and functional needs organizations.
Speaker 16
Just in the essence of time, we'll just quickly gloss over this one. Here's some of the information and services that we provide for our Access to Functional Needs groups. Next slide, please. And then things that we're doing to continue this great work in 2021, we've already identified 10 locations where we're going to have new weather stations and associated sectionalizing devices that is going to possibly help 5,000 customers with impacts from public safety power shutoff. The different generator programs that I described within the presentation here, close to 2,500 people will be afforded the opportunity to get backup generation in some sort of form or fashion.
We're going to have six microgrids operating in 2021 and undergrounding at nine different locations that are going to help over 1,100 customers for a total of 11,000 customers just with the work that we're doing this year. And this is in addition to we're going to be hardening well over 200 miles of transmission and distribution infrastructure again and undergrounding 25 miles this year, 80 miles next year to permanently help mitigate the risk as well as mitigate the effects of PSPS. But now I gave you guys a lot of information and I'll gladly answer any questions that you have now.
Speaker 2
Okay. Just a reminder to everyone, we're running about ten minutes behind and we have one more presentation before we move to public comment. So just be mindful of that as you ask your question. I'll turn the mic over to others on the dial.
Speaker 5
President Bachelor? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins, for the excellent presentation.
Two questions quickly here. One is if you I don't know if we can go back to slide seven. And if you can talk about all the obviously, wind being a major factor in triggering PSPS. But can you talk about if and how you use your vegetation management as a factor for locational decisions? Do you are you using well can you talk about how you
Speaker 16
I believe it was two years ago, we started to develop a vegetation risk index, and what this is, it takes into account the type of tree it is, the species, the growth rate, the proximity to our line, what sort of clearances do we have in this particular area for this particular small segment of circuit, what historical outages have we seen in this area related to vegetation, is there something about this area that just causes more contacts than others. And we took all this data and it informs a vegetation risk index and it kind of boils it down into low, medium and high risk areas. And so if an area has a high vegetation risk index, it's going to have a lower threshold for the decision that we would make to de energize because of that. Also, we look at the ninety fifth and 90 percentile wind speeds. We have a lot of data that shows once you get to a ninety fifth percentile wind speed in an area, so it doesn't see that wind a whole lot of the time, the occurrences of vegetation contacts dramatically goes up.
So I'm hoping that's answering the question for you.
Speaker 5
Yes, thank you. And just understanding that little deeper would be nice to receive as a follow-up because it sounds like you're doing more than just soil moisture. You're actually looking at where you're at with your management and the historical incidents get driven by vegetation, if I capture that You
Speaker 5
Okay. And then just one quick question on the fixed backup power. Are you in coordination with your water and telecommunication providers on those? Do they receive any sort of are they any of the recipients of that fixed backup power?
Speaker 16
We will look at those on an basis, but with all the work that we've done with either whether it's a water authority or communications providers over the last few years, they've installed backup power at their facilities in all their critical locations and we meet with them after the PSPS season is over and talk about lessons learned and things that we can do to help provide them information and locations. And for the last two years, this is the feedback that we've gotten that the communication facilities have not had a cell tower without power because they've had their own backup generation and it's really been the coordination and communication that we've had over the last few years that's enabled that to happen.
Speaker 5
Okay. So it's good to hear on the cell towers, maybe on some of the other landline providers as well would be good. But that's good. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Are there any other questions from the dais at this time of Mr. Jenkins?
Speaker 7
President Batra, I have a question for Mr. Jenkins and Bruce. Given what you just articulated about the changing nature of wins that you've observed and the length of the Santa Ana events, do you need to more fundamentally reorient how you're planning for high fire threat risk?
Speaker 16
That's a great question. And Bruce, I don't know if you want to take that or you want me to.
Speaker 15
I don't want to jump in here ahead of myself. Maybe both of us. I guess what I would say, Commissioner is, I think the answer is yes. We don't really our risk modeling with regard to wildfire does incorporate some level of worsening, if you will. The extension of the season, it's a little bit it obviously is a very imprecise science to predict the future.
But what I would tell you is our approach to hardening has really redoubled. We are using cover conductor much more extensively than we have in the past. We mentioned the strategic undergrounding. So I think you're seeing a shift in our response, trying to kind of accommodate a reasonable balance between the cost of these improvements and the benefits involved. But I think it's a I'm sure John has more to add, but it is a nuanced it's more art than science, frankly, on how far we go here.
Speaker 16
Yes, great answer Bruce and as he just mentioned we are incorporating a certain worsening of the risk you will into our wildfire risk model that informs what mitigations we do and prioritizes the mitigations against each other as well. And that's really what has led I mean, you're going to in our 2021 update, we sort of see a little bit of a ramp down of overhead hardening and a ramp up of if we are overhead hardening with covered conductor and then a significant ramp up in undergrounding. There's just areas that are prone to high winds that really the only way to mitigate the risk as well as the PSPS impacts is to underground the infrastructure. So that's really what has started us down this path with our 2021 WMP update here.
Speaker 15
Probably the last thing I would add that I think is important. I mean, we're obviously talking this whole session is on PSPS and it is contradictory to our fiber to shut off the power. But I would tell you, but for these limited areas where we're underground, we do believe that it is important used properly to maintain PSPS as a safety mitigation tool. We certainly hope to reduce its impact. We've seen a lot of reduction when we look specifically at a given event and how we used to manage it in the past.
But I do think it's an important tool going forward for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 16
One more comment is, we definitely know that there's an impact to public safety power shutoff to our customers and we don't take those decisions lightly. But in the risk model that I'm describing to you, we've also incorporated the risk of PSPS. So it is not a risk free tool. So we use that to balance out our mitigations and help select the appropriate type of mitigation and help prioritize the work as well.
Speaker 2
Customer engagement. Excuse me, Commissioner Schirm, just one last question, please. Yes. I am very appreciative that the San Diego Gas Monarch System is with the neurology stations and sexualization, the granularity is a real model. We heard from Edison's customers that they were very frustrated with the sheer number of notifications that they received.
Just wondered if there's any insights to how you interact with your customers towards showing that you're getting in the best information possible and whether there are any lessons learned there for others to take a look at?
Speaker 16
Yeah, well we, you know, part of our work is that to get continuously better at this and so we go out and through these webinars and community fairs that we're all obviously doing again this year we take back information of ways that we could have improved and communicated with our customers better. And I think there was a kind of a question there about the notification process too. It is a fine line. You don't want to it's all based off of a forecast and you definitely don't want to be in a situation where a customer did not get notified and we ended up having to shut off their power. So and for our large event, for example, we notified 95,000 customers and ended up shutting off 73,000.
So there we are concerned about over notification and notification fatigue, but again, we don't want to have people get not get notified and then having their power shut off during an event.
Speaker 2
Okay, thank you. I'm sorry we're just short on time. I'm sure there's a number of other questions that the dais would like to ask, but we're going to have to move on. So I really thank you Mr. Volkmann and Mr.
Jenkins for your presentation and any of our questions that were asked that you feel that you still need to provide us more information, please do not hesitate to do so. Okay, thank you very much. And with that, we'll move on to the PG and E presentation and that will be given by the Executive Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer, Adam Wright. And I think Mr. Wright, this is your first time appearing before us.
Speaker 19
It is, President Batcher and Commissioners. Thanks for having me. Very glad to be here. Just one short clarification, Samit Singh is with me. He'll actually walk us through the presentation and some of the specifics from 2020 and what we're looking at for 2021.
But I do appreciate overall you having the PG and E team here today to really share about our public safety Power Shutoff program and the steps we're taking to get better for our customers. But since this is my first time, I would like to take just a second to get some context on why I'm here. I've worked my entire career for the Berkshire Hathaway Energy Family of Companies, which is an exceptional organization. And I fully intended to retire from the organization. And I finished my last post there as President and CEO of Mid America Energy Company, Iowa.
Started when I was an 18 year old engineering student and was really looking forward to settling down in Iowa and the Midwest where I was born and raised. And if you know anything about the Midwest, it's a mostly insulated part of the country, usually the last in first out, but being a part of the industry and being human really for that matter, made it very difficult to miss the significant challenges that California and the communities here are facing. And so despite that distance between California and Iowa, kept a very close eye on what was taking place here. And so when I got a call from the PG and E team to join, I had a choice to make. That choice really was, do I stay put and continue to be a valued leader and tethered to a very stable, very predictable business, serving very appreciative customers or do I sort of step up and become a needed leader to help turn around a company really struggling to service customers and communities who I saw as desperate for and very deserving of a trusted energy partner.
So very humbled for the opportunity to be a part of this team at a time such as this, as we continue to shift our focus to put our customers at the center of everything we do. And I really mean customers, not inputs for billing determinants, but real people with real families, with real businesses, with real aspirations and who have clearly shared, no real concerns about the state of things and putting them at the center is what we're truly focused on going forward. And that includes the work that we're focused on for preventing and responding to California's increasing wildfire risk. And that's really what our PSPS program is about. It's really a last resort for us to prevent wildfires from impacting people.
We clearly know that targeted power shutoffs are a critical tool for us to keep communities and customers safe, but we also know it comes as a burden to really everyone who is impacted by them. And it carries its own safety risks, especially for the people who are most vulnerable. That is not lost on us. It's also not lost on us that the wildfire season in California is starting earlier, it's lasting longer and it's becoming more severe and more intense. So everyone here at PG and E understands the need for urgency and transparency and acting decisively as we work hard to improve the safety of our systems.
So in my new role so far, almost been sixty calendar days since taking the post. I've done a lot of listening, listening to our coworkers, I'm listening to customers through comments that have been captured through our various feedback loops that we have here. And it's very clear that there are things that we missed in 2019 and that 2020, there were several lessons learned that we can build upon going forward. But it's also clear we made meaningful strides, both operationally and in how we support and serve our customers during PSPS events. But we do have plenty of work to do ahead in 2021.
One of the things that we're doing get ahead of it this year is that we're setting up a new organization and that organization is going to be focused entirely on keeping our customers and communities safe from wildfires. We're calling it the wildfire risk organization dedicated to the planning and execution of our wildfire safety work, really ensuring that the two components of our program, which is the planning and execution are fully aligned and integrated, which being fully candid, that's a place we've authored in the past where our plans haven't matched the execution and has created some gaps. And so singular focus for this group, plan and execute our wildfire program to a T and then quickly recover and improve whenever we have something that's off. And so this new organization and really PG and E, as you've probably heard by now, will be managed through new operating paradigm, the lean operating system. And lean is really meant to break down the silos that have played PG and E in the past to give us visibility into our performance daily.
It's going to create routines for problem solving and course correcting when things are off. It's a tried and tested and proven operating system to empower really every employee at every level to drive meaningful change and to make a difference and to solve problems and to own the outcomes for our business. For me coming into this organization, it's really gonna take the mystery out of a matrix organization. And I'm very excited to stand up this new wildfire risk organization operating under the lean operating system and to work relentlessly and tirelessly alongside them to make sure our energy system is safer and more resilient for our customers. So I am here with Samit Singh, who will be leading this new wildfire risk organization.
He'll talk more about the improvements we're making in 2021, sort of less than the impact of PSP events on our customers. Clearly, we're here to listen. We can only get better if we take input, apply it to our programs and processes, so we can actually serve our customers and address the needs that our commission has from us as well. So excited to gather this feedback and looking forward to getting to know you more, hearing more from you and making California all it can be. I know there's a ton of potential at PG and E, there's a ton of opportunity to get better for our customers.
I couldn't be more excited to be here and to work alongside the leadership team at PG and E. So with that, I'll turn it over to Sumit, and he'll provide his comments.
Speaker 2
One quick observation before we turn to Sumit. Mr. Am, thank you. I'm excuse me, Mr. Wright.
Thank I'm glad to hear you say that you realize that the plans have not matched execution always at PG and E, certainly an improvement from 2019 to 2020. But as I've said many times to you all, you will be judged by your outcomes, not your plans. So I'm very glad to hear that realization and understanding. So with that, Sumit, why don't we go and turn on turn to your presentation.
Speaker 9
Great. Thank you, Adam, and good morning, respected President Badger and respective commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to engage in this extremely important forum today. My name is Sumit Singh, and I have the privilege of being PG and E's Chief Risk Officer. Today, I will be sharing an update on three items.
The first is related to the twenty twenty public safety power shutoff events. The second is the feedback that we have received from our customers and our communities that we're privileged to serve after last year's PSPS events. And the third is improvements of PSPS events that we are committed to making for this year for our customers and our communities. I'm happy to take any questions that you have during this discussion, and we also really look forward to your feedback and the feedback during the public comment period on how we can continue to improve our performance during PSPS events. So if we go to the next slide, please.
I will begin by providing an overview of the events from last year and the improvements we were able to make over 2019. We know how difficult it is for our customers to be without power and do not take the decision to de energize lightly. We only use PSPS as a last resort for public safety to prevent significant wildfires. We know that we did not meet the expectations of our customers and our communities during 2019, and we own that. As a result, last year, we had an unwavering focus on providing more support for our customers and our communities, including reducing the size and length of PSPS events.
We had six events in 2020 and one in January, which is the first of its kind of this year. Last year,
Speaker 9
events impacted 55 fewer customers or nearly 800,000 less customers in total for the six events as compared to similar weather events in 2019. We had a multi pronged approach on focusing to make the PSPS events smaller. The largest driver of this reduction was improved and more granular weather forecasting capabilities. We also had a better transmission line scoping process. We enabled islanding capabilities in areas like the Humboldt County from our Humboldt Bay generating station.
And we also made grid improvements like sectionalization devices and temporary generation, including microgrids, which I'm going to talk about in a little bit more detail in a couple of slides. We also reduced the amount of time it took to safely restore power after the adverse weather had passed by 41%. So we went from seventeen hours on average of restoration time after the all weather clear conditions were achieved down to ten hours on average. To perform this, as part of our largest event, we had more than 3,200 qualified on the ground personnel supporting our inspection efforts. We deployed 65 helicopters to inspect lines from the air, nearly doubling the fleet that we had in 2019.
Also deployed an airplane that has and was equipped with LiDAR technology to inspect transmission lines at night. So we don't necessarily lose that time period from a restoration and an inspection perspective. We also provided our customers better information, resources and assistance before, during and after PSPS events. We provided notifications to more than 12,000,000 of our customers over the six total events. They were available in 13 different languages.
We were successfully able to reach 98.5% of our customers with accurate notifications in 2020 compared to levels of below 90% of customers in 2019. And for our medical baseline customers, we were able to achieve 99.5% accurate notifications. We obviously have more work to do, but a marked improvement from 2019. We provided more than 30,000 food packages through partnerships with local food banks, more than 6,500 portable batteries that were provided to our medical baseline customers that were in need, and more than 4,500 customers were served through many of the partnerships that we have with our community based organizations that provide hotel vouchers, transportation, and other critical resources. These accomplishments could not have occurred without the extensive input over the past year from advisory councils, regional councils, customer input, agency partners and frankly your input.
We know that even with these improvements, there's more that we can do and are committed to doing so in the 2021 season. So if we go to the next slide please. What we've learned and heard following the twenty twenty PSPS events, we continue to engage and listen to our customers' agency partners take their feedback and implement it to make these events less impactful. The feedback has been critical for us to understand how we continue to improve. For example, while our overall customer experience was better last year and our website has improved, our information sharing still needs further improvements.
Some of our customers are receiving either inaccurate notifications or notifications that were inconsistent with the information on other channels like the website. We also know that any time a customer lose power, it's a burden and that there are often economic impacts. We heard that more support is needed for customers with access and functional needs, and our agency partners also received information and shared information with us that varied between sources. We know it is frustrating for our agency partners when they do not know which information is the most up to date. We've acted immediately on much of the feedback we heard during the course of last year's events, and we have benefited tremendously and continue to do so from advisory councils such as the Access Functional Needs Focused Council that we established in April 2020 that has been providing independent expertise to us to help ensure that our customer programs, operations and communications incorporate best practices to support our AFN customer population now and in the future.
Additional feedback has directed many of the other improvements that we're making this year, and I will touch upon three specific areas. First, in regards to customer support second, in regards to agencies and will also address specifically the request from Commissioner Guzman in regards to our engagement with the telecom partners, as well as water agency providers, and then also the unwavering focus we have on continued operational improvements. So let's start with the customer support programs. If we go to the next slide please. So this year, we're improving by refining our customer notification so that the information is consistent across all the channels and the message is clear.
We're expanding our in language customer outreach to make available languages to go from 13 to 16. We have also launched address alerts, which is a marked improvement from the zip code alert process we had last year, which allow anyone to be notified of an outage at any address. And this is really geared towards helping address master meter accounts such as apartment complexes and mobile home parks. We're also expanding our network of community based organization partnerships with two eighty five organizations covering our entire service area and focusing on serving customers with access and functional needs. These partnerships provide transportation support, hotel vouchers and in language communications.
We're expanding our meal replacement from local food banks and Meals on Wheels programs to cover every county that's likely to be impacted by a PSPS event. We're providing 5,000 additional portable batteries totaling over 11,500 batteries through both our portable battery program and our community based organization partnerships. Last year, we were able to provide 6,500 batteries and our goal this year is to make available portable batteries for all low income medical baseline customers in the high power plant districts that would like access to one. We're continuing to expand our network of event ready ADA accessible indoor CRC sites when it's safe to do so given COVID-nineteen, including adding more CRC sites in coordination with our local agencies. We're expanding the outreach for the generator rebate program for customers who rely on well water pumps.
We've also made an effort to increase enrollment in the medical baseline customer population. Last year, we had nearly a twenty six percent increase that we experienced, and customers can also now self identify as having a serious illness or condition that could become life threatening if service is disconnected. We are hopeful that these resources can help to ease the burden for customers who are impacted when we make the difficult decision to turn off power as a measure of last resort for safety. Let me turn my attention now to the agency and the tribal engagement and support, including the telecom service providers and water service providers. If we go to the next slide, please.
To help guide our improvements this year, we are partnering with and requesting feedback from cities, counties, tribes, regulatory agencies on joint solutions. This includes the partnerships we have on the listening sessions with the counties, the tribes, the critical facilities. We've held 41 listening sessions following our PSPS events in 2020. We have working sessions that we have established with all the emergency managers from the counties and tribes to prepare for PSPS events and partner our solutions. We held 34 working sessions in 2020 and are reaching out to all counties in our service area beginning this week to schedule additional meetings.
We're improving our in event communications, including direct engagement with dedicated agency representatives, including Cal OES, Cal Fire and CPUC, improving our state agency calls from last year and also the portable and situational reports in response to the feedback that we have received. We're going to continue to perform PSPS exercises and trainings with agency tribes and key stakeholders to simulate PSPS events and identify areas for continued improvement ahead of the wildfire season. Last year, we conducted three full scale PSPS exercises from June to August and this year we will be holding two tabletop workshops and two full scale exercises in May and July that include engagement with our agency partners. We have ongoing regional working groups for key stakeholders in each of our five regions and advisory committee meetings that take place every other month. We've held 10 regional workshops in 2020 and just wrapped up our five regional working group meetings in the first quarter of this year with key agencies, public safety partners and AFN stakeholders.
We will hold 15 additional workshop and group meetings throughout 2021. And we also continue to host and attend meetings with city councils, Boards of Supervisors, critical facilities and other key stakeholders. Last year, we held nearly 400 individual meetings. This year, we've already done 50 and anticipate that we're well on track to be consistent with last year. The collaboration with the cities, counties, tribes and key stakeholders will continue to play a key role for improvements.
In relation to specifically the focus with our tribal communities, we have reached out to all 62 federally recognized tribes within our service area to coordinate on CRC locations, which is the customer resource centers, our PSPS notification contacts, portal access, and training and local progress updates. We have a lead as our tribal liaison, and we have included seven additional resources in event from a support staff perspective to be able to help enable that tribal liaison function when we're in the course of a PSPS event, both before, during, and after. They perform site reviews as part of our project work so that we have acute insights and strong awareness of the tribal issues. We're also engaging with the tribal health to promote medical baseline program and connecting with food pantries and replacement options on tribal lands to explore potential partnerships. In regards to the telecom service providers, we initiated a group in early twenty twenty to create a forum for communication providers so that we can provide feedback and they can provide feedback to us on our current CSPS implementation protocols.
We have attendees and membership from AT and T, Verizon Wireless, Comcast, Frontier Communications, T Mobile, Consolidated Communications to name a few amongst others within our service territory. And they've continued to provide us valuable feedback in regards to our performance in 2020. While the feedback has been generally positive, the group has also recommended improvements for more accessibility to PSPS event information, including maps in the PSPS portal and the support role that's provided during PSPS events by our critical infrastructure lead. We're also coordinating with the telecom entity's leadership. I've personally had several meetings with the leadership of the likes of AT and T, Verizon, Comcast, and we're supporting their wireless and wireline resiliency plans in regards to prioritization that's informed by insights on the anticipated frequency and extent of PSPS events based on our vast meteorological forecasts and historical events that we can share with them to further help their resiliency plans.
In regards to the water agencies, we have worked closely with water agencies individually and via organizations like the Association of California Water Agencies to support preparedness for PSPS. East Mudd and other water agencies are public safety partners to us that portal access during events. Furthermore, East Bemad participated in one of our full scale exercises last year, and water agencies participate also in our regional working groups that I previously mentioned. We have also held very specific PSPS seminars, portal trainings and postseason listening sessions with our water sector. And we've also provided and worked in partnership with EPA's Region IX as an example to support water agency best practice standard operating procedures so that we can enhance the preparedness for PSPF and other power interruptions.
Notably, this work was focused on supporting some of the smaller and tribal water systems. My last topic I want to touch on is operational improvements. So if we go to the last slide, please. Our wildfire safety efforts are continuing to evolve and improve every year to reflect lessons learned, new technology and feedback from our customers and communities. And our approach is reflected in our 2021 wildfire mitigation plan.
The focus areas for us continue to improve upon our situational awareness with more weather stations and high definition cameras. This year, we will complete the installation of our advanced weather station, and we'll have one station roughly every 20 miles along our lines of the high fire threat districts, with a total of 1,300 weather stations by the end of this year. Next year, we will complete our network of high definition cameras, which allow us to have visual access to more than 90% of the high fire threat areas in our service area, in addition to the near real time fire detection capabilities that we have today in place through the NASA GOES sixteen and seventeen satellites, which we implemented last year. We're continuing to refine our weather forecasting and modeling capabilities, making sure that we can accurately forecast the areas of highest wildfire risk. This year, we will be able to further align our weather forecasting with the areas that are at a higher risk of potential wildfires through the use of the Technosilva fire simulation capabilities.
I think a platform of fire simulation capabilities that the other IOUs, the respective commission and CalFire is well aware of. And we're also going to be able to forecast severe weather one day earlier than last year. So we'll be able to go from a rolling four day look ahead forecast to a five day look ahead forecast. We'll continue to make improvements to our electric grid, including preparing additional microgrids and installing two fifty more systemization devices to further reduce the scope of PSPS. This is on top of the nearly 600 devices that we have already installed or automated in 2020.
We're continuing to support CRCs, critical services, temporary distribution microgrids and substation microgrids, including looking for diesel alternative generation technologies to pilot in 2021. We're also refining our restoration process to meet the requirement of having all customers restored within twenty four hours of the adverse weather, consistent with the CPUC requirement, and we've got a specific focus on creating more granular restoration plans for circuits that are impacted more frequently and located in areas that are harder for our field personnel to access. And we're also continuing to harden our system with stronger poles and covered lines and also focused undergrounding and taking a very similar approach to the colleagues that discussed the approach that they're taking with San Diego Gas and Electric. We've got an enhanced risk model that is helping us to be even more focused with our work locations, and we're prioritizing areas that are at the highest risk significant wildfires. Over the course of the last two years, we have hardened more than five fifty miles, and we've got a continued focus on that effort to be able to engineer the wildfire risk out of our system.
Lastly, would like to address the discussions that are currently taking place with the federal court regarding a potential change to PSPS criteria this year. Following our discussions with the CPUC, we shared our perspective on the court's proposed conditions. We share the unwavering focus of both the court and the CPUC of advancing public safety, and we'll continue working with all stakeholders to advance the shared objective. We understand the concerns with the proposed conditions that have been shared by both the CPUC and the Cal OES. We agree that the matter should be considered at the CPUC on an expedited basis and look forward to engaging with the CPUC's energy division and SED in the established process as requested by the CPUC in a letter to us this morning to reach resolution as quickly as possible in order to plan and prepare for the upcoming wildfire season.
Thank you again for the opportunity to engage with you today, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have, and we look forward to your input and the input during the public comment session on how we can continue to improve.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Singh. I appreciate your presentation very much. I kept reflecting back on 2019, thinking how we are certainly not perfect by any means, and we'll hear that from our partners this afternoon, but improvement has been made. Okay.
I'm going to I do have one quick question on undergrounding. I don't know that I've heard any of your undergrounding specifics, miles that you had planned to underground, how many you have underground. Could do you have that handy?
Speaker 9
Sure, President Badger. I can share the approach with you. So the last two years, we have hardened five fifty miles. A lot of the undergrounding that we've done, more than 50 miles over the last couple of years has been as part of the Butte County rebuild for the Paradise system, as you know. Going forward, we evaluate each project that we look at from a system hardening lens to identify is it most effective from a risk spend efficiency standpoint to do overhead hardening, to do undergrounding, or to do a line removal as was referenced by my colleague in San Diego Gas and Electric, where in some cases we have significant lines, 5.5 miles or so, traversing dense forests, providing service to four or five customers in those instances, we have identified it's most prudent to eliminate that line and provide a remote grid type of a solution.
So those are the three elements that are part of our system hardening plan. And as we've applied that for a lot of the scoping for our 2021 work and going forward into 2022 and 2023, of the 180 miles that we have forecasted for this year, we're preparing a lot of the work for undergrounding for 2022 and going forward. We'll be ramping up to about 500 miles total for system hardening, and we're seeing roughly 35 to 40% of that being in the undergrounding category, evaluating the risk from a very granular lens of risk reduced per dollar spent for the full asset lifecycle cost for each of those alternatives. So that's roughly what we're seeing in the scoping process, President Badger.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I'm going to turn to the rest of the dais before doing so very quickly, just a time check. We are running about fifteen minutes behind and we have members of the public I know standing by to ask questions. So we will not cut into their time. We will shorten our lunch break time.
So I'll just turn to the rest of the dais for any questions now, but just remind everyone, let's keep it as efficient as possible. Thanks. Yes. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speak up. Is that chief? Yes.
Speaker 13
perfect. Sumit, I have a question on your power restoration goals. You had mentioned that last year you made progress in reducing your time to restore the power after a PSPS. In 2019 and 2020, you had specific goals. In fact, last year, your goal was an average of ten hours.
However, in your 2021 plan, looking at over, your goal is now set and extended to the CPUC required twenty four hours. So you're going from a goal of ten down to up to twenty four. So it just seems like your goal is going backwards. And I was wondering if you could maybe expand on what your actual goal this year will look like.
Speaker 9
Yes. Thank you, Chief, for that question. Thank you, for that question. More specifically, the goal for us last year that we had in the 2020 law firm mitigation plan was to restore 98% or more of our customers within twelve daylight hours after the weather all cleared. We were able to achieve 95.5% last year, and much of that was attributed to the first event that we had in September 7.
If you recall, we had a significant number of lightning caused fires where a lot of our helicopter fleet was grounded. And in that specific event, we achieved 91%. And obviously, for the remaining five events, didn't have that runway to be able to recover, but nonetheless, got to 95.5%. So our goal, Chief, is to maintain that level of performance going forward. So it's not intended to be backwards.
Our reference in the wildfire mitigation plan was in recognition to the decision that was put forward as part of the PSPS OIR in regards to ensuring that all customers are restored, 100% of customers are restored within twenty four hours unless there's extenuating circumstances. So our intent is not to go backwards. If anything, our goal is to maintain performance from last year and further improve going into 2021. So that's going to be our continued effort. We're going to have access to 65 plus helicopters.
We're going to have access to the 3,000 plus qualified safety inspectors, and we're going to have access to two additional fixed aircraft wings with LiDAR capabilities so we could do the night controls.
Speaker 13
I appreciate that explanation. One quick question. Know we're running out of time. As you've made a lot of progress in other areas in your wildfire mitigation initiatives, How is that being taken into account in your PSPS decision making? For example, as you're hardening more circuits, as you are continuing completion of enhanced vegetation management, is that data being incorporated into the overall decision making on when to shut the power off?
Speaker 9
Thank you, Chief for that question. It is. So in the instances where we have undergrounded and we have made safe the respective circuit that's providing service to the high fire threat districts. Because if you think about how our circuits are configured, we could have a source that may be in the non high fire threat district, traverses a high fire threat district, comes back out and then goes back into a high fire threat district. So we have to make that entire circuit or what we call circuit protection zone safe and hardened before we can remove that from a PSPS consideration perspective.
So for undergrounding in line with mobile, that's absolutely considered from a PSPS threshold standpoint. And then currently, we're working on a methodology where we do have covered conductor on what the changes to that threshold for the decision making is going to be to be able to add that additional safety factor that we do get from the covered conductor, and then that would raise our PSPS threshold. So that's how we're going to be considering and including the work we're doing on the system resiliency side to further help incorporate the thresholds and the varying thresholds from a PSPS decision making standpoint at that respective circuit level.
Speaker 5
Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Singh, for answering the water and telecommunication questions very thoroughly. Very much appreciate the progress that's been made there. One small question that you can follow-up on.
In the undergrounding efforts that you're doing, are you ensuring that you're adding conduit for telecommunication facilities as you're undergrounding?
Speaker 9
Thank you for that question, Commissioner Guzman. So in the case of the Paradise rebuild, we absolutely are. We are coordinated not just on the gas, the electric, but also the telecom providers. And in the instances where we work with the telecom providers and there's interest on their part as well, we have a mechanism by which we have the joint trench shared agreement that we can rely on for the purposes of having that joint trench for doing the undergrounding. For the most part, for a lot of the undergrounding that we're doing for fire risk resiliency purposes, outside of what's happening in the Butte County and the Paradise Rebuild, what we've primarily seen at the moment is a lot of us driving that undergrounding from an electrical facility perspective at the moment.
Speaker 5
Okay. Well, I'd like to have a follow-up with you on that, but we can keep that as a follow-up an opportunity really for these communities to become more resilient. And then my final question is, can you talk a little bit about what the role is going to be with the regional vice presidents? I don't know if I have that title right on your reorganization proposal?
Speaker 9
Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Guzman. That obviously, as you know, is occurring as part of the regionalization proceeding itself. But as we start to stand up the regional vice presidents, where, as Adam also mentioned, with the implementation of the lean operating system and the use in standing up the daily operating reviews, It's the same management philosophy that we're implementing with all of the wildfire risk and all the wildfire mitigation work that we're doing. So as we stand both of those elements in parallel over time, the expectation would be that the regional vice presidents would have oversight of the wildfire respective activities that are taking place on the mitigation side within their respective regions.
One example is the work that we've already started with the engagement with our emergency management partners, the local counties. Going forward, that relationship would be owned by the respective regional vice presidents, not just for the PSPS interactions, but all work that's happening within that respective region. So we're going be very well coordinated as we align to that both regional structure as well as what we're implementing as part of the wildfire risk organization that Adam referenced.
Speaker 4
You, Mr. Singh, for your presentation. One of the areas where we haven't had a lot of uniformity necessarily across IOUs or in the different jurisdictions is the way that information on outages is the boundary. So for example, you mentioned in your slides that obviously a customer with the address based, you mentioned zip code base, but has there been any progress towards being able to provide info to decision makers that perhaps has a city boundary, county boundary or other ways that can assure decision makers to know the full impact in their jurisdiction?
Speaker 9
Thank you for that question. We have continued work to do in that space and we're working with Cal OES to my understanding, working very closely on the feedback that's been provided on how we can continue to improve upon the information that we're sharing as part of the events, the information that we're uploading in the PSPS portals. So we've gotten that feedback and we are committed to ensuring that we meet the expectations of yourself, of Cal OES as we get into the 2021 season itself. We also have joint and collaborative sessions, as you may be aware, with Cal OES, Cal Fire, the other two and the major IOUs to ensure there's a level of consistency on the approach that we're taking. And in relationship to the address lookup that I was referencing or the address alerts, a lot of that was feedback that we received for homeowners or individuals that may be in apartment complexes or mobile homes where their tenant typically who has the registered account with us is the one who's getting notified, but the individuals within the apartments or the mobile homes may not be getting that notification.
But now what they can do with the address alert is to enter that address and provide their contact information for the master meter account so that even though they do not have a customer account with us, they can still get that notification. So that's the improved granularity and capability we've stood up now that's in place. But in regards to the information exchange with the agencies and Cal OES, we're committed to working with you to make sure we provide and meet the needs that's expected of us.
Speaker 2
You. Singh, a real quick follow-up to that. On the master meter, because I've extremely been very concerned about this in the last two years. Will the program you just described be fully implemented for the twenty twenty one fire season?
Speaker 9
It will be President Badger. It's operational now. Can go to our website and you can actually sign up for the address alerts.
Speaker 9
Do you know? I don't have that offhand. I know we recently implemented that President Badger and we intend to use the same communication vehicles and channels that we have implemented and really partnering heavy with many of our two eighty five plus community based organizations for the outreach, for the communications and engagement at that local regional level. So we're optimistic that it's going to be effective means by which we can get this message out of the traditional capability that exists.
Speaker 2
I know you will not be able to remain this afternoon, but I know you have a colleague who will be, and I think that this should be something that is talked about there. We might ask the question of the panel if they have awareness of how if the access and functional needs community is indeed of an understanding that this is how they can get address alerts. That's really critical for many to be very aware of that important access. So next question of PG and E.
Speaker 7
This is Commissioner Rex Chopin, Samit. We continue to hear a lot of dissatisfaction from the access and functional needs community about many people who do not have access to backup batteries or other equipment. PG and E has fallen short in getting that equipment to customers over the past year or two. Last year COVID was of course a very important concern. You said your intent is to provide 5,000 additional batteries either directly or through third party customers this year.
Is there any reason that you can't do that for sure? Is there any reason why that can't be something that absolutely is done this time around?
Speaker 9
So thank you, Commissioner. I apologize if I gave you the sentiment that the intent, we are committed to doing that, and we will deliver upon that commitment of the incremental $5,000 for a total of $11,500 again, with the objective of ensuring that every low income medical baseline customer that would like access to one has the ability to get access to a portable battery. We have four different options of portable batteries. We work with the community based organizations to understand the specific needs for each of the medical baseline customers because each of them is using the battery and electricity for a different device and the power consumption varies as well, which is why we have different sizes of portable batteries. The community based organizations like the California Foundation of Independent Living Centers helps us do those assessments, and we make available the portable batteries, and we will make those available.
And that's a commitment from us. So that's not the intent. That will be done.
Speaker 2
How about a couple more questions so we can get into our public comment period? Any other questions? Go ahead.
Speaker 6
You had mentioned that you have a program for backup generation for well pumping. Could you just briefly describe that and confirm that those would be batteries and what type of outreach you're doing to those customers?
Speaker 9
Yes. So we've got a self generator incentive program for that. There's about 3,200 plus applications that we have received. And there's depending on the respective income levels as well for some of the customers that rely on well pump, there's a greater incentive that's provided. It depends on a customer by customer basis.
We have done, last time I checked, more than four fifty interconnections associated with that specific program. So it is a pilot program that we initiated in 2020, and we're looking to continue to ramp that up going into 2021 so that our customers who may not have access and are relying on well pumps for the purposes of water and wastewater. Really, that's the intended focus of that specific program, which obviously is completely separate from the backup generation program that we have related to our medical baseline customers or what we call our SCHIP equity resiliency program. So those are two completely separate programs for that intended purpose.
Speaker 2
this has to be with vegetation management and your public facing commitments and programs, programs that we've, you know, approved. My question is, what is the progress? And do you have do you have crews out there and will be out there, you know, right up to and through the high fire season conducting vegetation management across your utility wide effort?
Speaker 9
Thank you, Commissioner, for that question. I think you may be aware of our vegetation management program. It's three parts to that program. One is a program that maintains minimum clearance, which we've had in place for multiple decades. Second element is a tree mortality program, which we implemented in 2014 as a result of the drought and the significant number of dead, dying and deceased trees that we were seeing in our service territory.
Speaker 9
was on ramp in 2019 goes above and beyond those two programs, which is really our enhanced vegetation management to remove all the overhang, as well as do a hazard assessment for every single strike potential tree. Since the implementation of that program in 2019, we have completed 4,500 more than 4,500 miles of our 25,500 miles of distribution lines that traverse the high power threat districts. In our 2021 WMP, we have a minimum forecast of doing 1,800 miles or more on a risk based basis. So we're continuing to focus on the highest risk areas, and that's the pace that we have established going forward. Over the last couple of years, Commissioner, we have more than doubled the number of vegetation management resources that are focused on removing and clearing vegetation away from our power lines, as well as identifying those potential hazard trees that could fall into our line on a preventative basis.
So we have crews working across our service territory at the moment as we speak, and they're going to continue to do so throughout the entire year. And in instances and cases where we forecast high fire risk, we will stand down our vegetation management teams for that day, two or three day time period so that we're further reducing the operational risk of a potential ignition that may occur as a result of vegetation management work being performed. But we have more than 4,500 qualified tree crew personnel and certified arborists and registered arborists within our service territory at any given point that are doing the work on a continued basis.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you to PG and E for your presentation. Appreciate it very much. I'm going to move now on to the public comment period of our day. And as I said earlier, we will not cut into the public comment period.
We will have the planned amount of time as we did prior to running overtime, so we will have time for public comment period until approximately 12:20. Okay, if you wish to make a public comment, dial (800) 857-1917 and enter the passcode 5180519Pound and press star one to be placed into the queue and the operator will take your name and information if appropriate. If you have already dialed into the public comment telephone line, please press 1 to get into the public comment queue. You will have two minutes to speak. Please adhere to two minutes.
You will hear a bell sound, a chime when your time is up. So please listen for that bell when your time is up. Please be mindful of the other speakers that are in the queue. You'll have much interest for everyone to speak today and I want to give everybody the opportunity. So please be mindful of the two minute limit.
With that guidance in mind, I welcome today's speaker and I will now turn back to the operator to open the public comment telephone line. Operator?
Speaker 1
Thank you. Our first public comment comes from Joseph Mitchell. Your line is open.
Speaker 22
Good morning. I have a quick concern and then a question. Utilities are trying to incorporate climate change into their long term plans. SDG and E today presented some evidence that winds are trending stronger. Unusually strong winds have also anecdotally been observed in Northern California in the last few years.
However, to my knowledge, there's no research calling for Santa Ana or Diablo winds to strengthen. In fact, current research suggests that the winds are going to weaken even if overall fire risk increases with the length of the fire season. So if these measured trends are significant, there may be something that we don't understand going on in the climate models. If that's true, and the utilities are using these standard climate models to predict future risk, they may be under predicting high wind risk. So that's something to watch and be concerned about.
Speaker 22
at the wildfire mitigation plans, I don't see any long term vision or plan to eliminate power shutoff. What sort of changes or technologies would need to be deployed to eliminate customer impacts? Are these new technologies hardening or continuation of current programs? Or are Californians stuck with power shut off forever? Thank you.
Speaker 23
very much. Thank you to the panelists for participating in this important meeting. As a wildfire survivor and a party proceeding, I'm increasingly concerned that the political and financial pressure to reduce the size and the scope of these PSPS events will increase the size and scope of wildfires within your territories because the right quality controls are not being sufficiently leveraged. As an example, the innovative use of drones and helicopters to increase the speed of inspections before we reenergize instead of leveraging more on the ground field inspections of the lines or crowdsourcing these activities is often cited as an advancement. But if that is at the expense of safety, I know we would agree that is not a fair trade.
Additionally, I'm concerned that the utilities refuse to recognize and address their failures that occur when poor de energization decisions collide with catastrophic wildfires. The Kincade fire, the Zogg fire, potentially the Glass fire are all catastrophes that should be lessons learned in terms of how we make de energization decisions. Nowhere within your wildfire mitigation plans are these fires and failures mentioned, let alone addressed. How can we see progress in your plans to address de energization in a thoughtful manner if we won't even map the failures from those decisions to how you are managing PSPS events in the future? PG and E has stated that one reason they have not addressed these issues is that the reports from CAL FIRE have not been released.
I am glad Chief Porter is present here today, but I would like to understand the panel's perspective on how the lack of release of the CAL reports to apparently protect the integrity of criminal and civil proceedings is getting in the way of our progress on the management of de energization and the important public safety matters before the commission. These reports contain an important evidentiary record that we need to improve how we manage de energization decisions and keep our residents safe. How do we continue to justify the lack of transparency? The Kincade fire was two years ago. We don't have the report and we don't have its findings represented in your plans.
How can we impede our safety by not disclosing your report? How can we feel assured in your stated Mr. Abrams, sorry, but
Speaker 2
your time is up. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. Operator, the next caller, please.
Speaker 24
Thank you. This is Melissa Kasnitz with the Center for Accessible Technology, an active party in this proceeding. I would like to discuss, the process for moving away from deliberate power shutoffs entirely as a fire risk strategy. While we want any events that take place to be as safe as possible, C4AT has concerns about the risk of normalizing power shutoffs as just another utility program that will go on indefinitely. The reports that we're getting from the utilities do not appear to be showing a move away from reliance on shutoffs, but this move away from power outages needs to remain a priority.
In 2018, when this proceeding was first initiated, the utilities made a prediction that outages would last for a period of ten years, and that was shocking. Now it seems like they're being integrated as an ongoing activity by the utility. The Commission needs to be pushing the utilities to phase down reliance on power outages within the ten year timeline that was predicted back in 2018, if not sooner. Thank you.
Speaker 25
Thank you and good morning. Thank you for listening to us. I was the only citizen intervener in the modernization of GO95 Title IV more than a decade ago. In that effort, we learned of a San Diego gas and electric pilot program, where fewer than 50 customers in the backcountry were put in an intentional shutoff area. They were given generators in exchange for SDGE getting power to cut off their power during high winds.
After the Santa Rosa disaster, the CPUC began considering a proposal to allow SDGE type PSPS blackouts in all IOU areas. But you need to know that your docket office made a mistake. LHRA was incorrectly noticed as affecting San Diego County only. It went to the wrong mailing list. Nobody in SCE or PGE territory knew that PSPSs were coming.
And when this commission approved them in 2018, I was the only person saying, you know, there may be a time when you need to turn off the power, but we need to look at this very carefully. The project that was approved, the initial PSPS proposal took advantage of the fact that nobody was asked for their comments. In fact, the power companies took out the requirement that San Diego Gas was living with, San Diego Gas and Electric, that they mitigate their outages. They said nobody wanted mitigation. That's because nobody knew about it.
So that because of that, a very small pilot program in the backcountry of San Diego that included full mitigation for these outages came became a statewide program with no mitigation. The IOUs have also plunged headfirst into a program with almost no public accountability. We, the public, have no metrics by which to judge whether our power getting shut off or warnings of PSPSs. We have no way to know if these are accurate or not. They say our weather forecasters are predicting high winds.
They don't issue their weather forecasts. We know what the winds are. Oftentimes, they're much, much below what we think are justifiable to turn the power off. We cannot judge from the reports that SC and E files with the state whether each individual PSPS event was justified. And I thank you for listening.
Speaker 2
Thank you for your call. Operator, the next caller please. Operator, the next caller please.
Speaker 15
President Badger, this is Robert Stanford. We are not showing any other callers at this time.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you very much, Robert. With no more callers on the line, that will end the public comment period of the meeting. I will ask if there are any other questions from the commissioner since we still have some time left because I think a couple of commissioners had raised their hands and I didn't get to call on them. Perhaps we still have representatives on the line who can answer questions.
Are there any other questions from the dais at this time that I cut off because of our time constraint earlier? Okay. Seeing none, that will take us to our lunch break. We will start at one p. M.
With the Access and Functional Needs Roundtable. We will have representatives of senior executive representatives of all of the IOUs present for this afternoon sessions, both roundtables. So see you all at 01:00 promptly. Thank you all.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, and everyone welcome back to the joint IOUs workshop on the twenty twenty Public Safety Power Shutoff event. I want to thank you all for your participation this morning and as I mentioned earlier our first roundtable will be with the access and functional needs community followed by a roundtable with the impacted local governments and tribal governments from across the state followed by public comment. We will have public comment at the end of those two roundtables. Do want to before I introduce the panel, I do want to tell those who are participating that we have senior leadership from the IOUs and also from Edison who did not present this morning but presented earlier in the winter. So they will be listening in and so I wanted you all to know that we have SDG and E, Bruce Falkman and other subject matter experts, Kevin Payne, the CEO of Edison and from PG and E, have Lori Gammon, SVP of Customer Care.
There are other representatives from the companies as well, but I wanted to underscore that they are participate or will be on the line this afternoon and listening in. The first panel will be ninety minutes. I will now turn to the moderators for our first roundtable, David Van Diken from the California Public Utilities Commission and Vance Talos from Cal OES. David and Vance, could you introduce the panel and begin?
Speaker 17
Hi. Can you hear me now? Yes. Alright. Awesome.
Sorry. I I'm have some issues with phone on my end. Sorry about that. So hello, everybody. My name is David Van Dijkien.
I am the acting Access and Functional Needs Coordinator at the California Public Utilities Commission. I want to thank everybody for their interest and attendance at today's Access and Functional Needs Roundtable. Our four Roundtable panelists are comprised of the executive directors, different statewide organizations that advocate for and support a wide variety of AFN people in California. The AFN roundtable will be an opportunity for our four panelists to ask questions and engage in conversation directly with executive level representatives at Pacific Power, PG and E, Southern California Edison and SDG and E regarding public safety power shutoff issues. Attending minutes will be allotted for this question and answer period and will conclude at 02:30.
I will be a co facilitator for this roundtable. L. Vance Taylor from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services will assist me in facilitation. Just a quick note about Lance. Louise Vance Taylor is the Chief of the Office of Excess and Functional Needs at Cal OES.
Vance is responsible for ensuring the needs of individuals with disabilities and persons with access and functional needs are identified before, during, and after disasters and integrated into the state's emergency management systems. Was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dance was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a child and uses a power wheelchair. He has worked in Washington, D. C.
As an advisor for two different members of Congress, directed security policy at a National Water Association, and been a principal at a top ranked homeland security and emergency management consulting firm. Is a nationally recognized public speaker and advocate for individuals with disabilities. Ants also has a master's degree in homeland security from the University of Connecticut and an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in communications. He is married to his sweetheart Casey and they have two wonderful daughters. Vance and his family live in Rancho Cordova, California.
Vance, do you want to add anything to that?
Speaker 10
Thanks, David. I need to take you with me everywhere I go. Fantastic intro. So good afternoon. I want to start by thanking President Basher and PC commissioners for organizing today's workshop and for your commitment to the integration of access and functional needs, not just in PSPS events, but in everything that the Commission is responsible for.
As David said, my name is Lance Taylor, and I'm the Chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at Callaway S. And my role exists because historically, as a nation, there have been significant gaps in how emergency managers plan, prepare, respond and recover from disasters with regards to the access and personal needs perspective. And this is an issue that was really highlighted during Hurricane Katrina. It's fair that we saw that out of everyone who perished, seventy percent of everyone that died had an access or functional need. So recognizing that individuals with disabilities, older adults, and all people with access or functional needs are disproportionately impacted before, during and after all disasters, not just our major ones, California saw a need to get ahead of this issue.
So in 2008, California Lean Forward and created the nation's first ever Office of Access and Functional Needs. As Chief, I'm appointed by the Governor. I served on the executive leadership team at Calawaya. In addition to advising the Director, I'm a Governor. Mine is really a twofold mission to identify and then to integrate the needs of all Californians throughout every facet of the safe emergency management system by working enterprise wide across our directorates, our programs, our divisions, by working externally with our fellow state agencies, and then partnering with our whole community and CDO stakeholders throughout the state.
We have integrated access and functional needs within the Color Reyes culture and we've woven it within the DNA of our agency. As President Badger stated so powerfully earlier today, she said, You will be judged by your outcomes, not your plans. The outcomes of our mission that moves well beyond developing inclusive plans. Our efforts, commitment and collaboration with our partners can be measured in decreased suffering and decreased loss of life among California's access and functional needs populations. This is not to say we've arrived.
Caleres, we recognize there's still much work to be done, but it is to say that we've developed a model for integration. Others, the IOUs can and should use to make meaningful progress in this area. So within the context of PSPS, we recognize very plainly, very clearly that PSPS events threaten the lives, safety, security and far too often even the dignity of California's most vulnerable populations to successfully meet and address this issue, to reduce the inequities of its causes and to overcome its disproportional impacts on individuals with access and marginal needs. It's incumbent on the IOUs to take bold, innovative, proactive action, action that will oftentimes feel uncomfortable and new and actions that will require them to really lean forward. I am eager to hear about how that has been happening, if it is happening and how it will be happening.
I want to thank all of our panelists and participants in advance for being here today for what I know is going be a great conversation. There's a lot of expertise and a lot of commitment. And I think what we'll find is we'll be able to identify as I said what's happening, identify some gaps and identify solutions that will work to make all Californians safer, more secure and more resilient before, during and after PSPS events. With that, I'll turn it over to David. He's going to introduce a couple of panelists and I'll interview a few.
And then we'll move into our question and answer portion.
Speaker 17
All right. Thank you very much for that, Vance. So to introduce our panelists here, our first panelist here is Christina Mills. She is the Executive Director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers or CFILC. This is a statewide membership association serving California's independent living centers and cross disability community.
In addition, Christina is responsible for seamlessly implementing half a dozen programs that are dedicated to increasing the independence and interdependence of individuals with disabilities. In 2020, her organization launched Disability Disaster Access and Resources Program. The program supports disabled individuals who rely on electrically powered medical devices and assistive technology to maintain their safety and well-being during a disaster or public safety power shutoff event. Christina is also a member of the California Utility Access and Functional Needs Advisory Committee, the Governor's Office on Emergency Access Services Access, Infectious Needs Advisory Committee, the Vaccine Advisory Committee, and the Vaccine Implementation Task Force. Welcome, Christina.
Our second panelist is Susan Henderson. She joined the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in 1997 and became its executive director in 2008. In addition to her executive director responsibilities, she manages the children and family advocacy and international disability rights programs. At Ceredf she expanded the family advocacy program to protect the rights of disabled children in the child welfare system and launched the Disability and Needs Alliance Project or DMAP to changes sensational cloying and misinformed disability coverage that undermines the public policy and legal advances of the last thirty five years to coverage that raises public awareness and helps to end disability discrimination. She recently co authored on behalf of the National Council on Disabilities called Self Mapping Access to a Technology Revolution, which examines the benefits and challenges that autonomous vehicles hold for disabled people.
She works internationally with other disability led organizations and conducts workshops on disability and human rights. Ms. Henderson has an MBA, MBA, and a BA in anthropology. Welcome, Ms. Henderson.
Lance, do you want to introduce the other two?
Speaker 10
Happy to do it. Andy Imparato began work in February as Executive Director for Disability Rights California. Then he had a high impact career in Washington DC in disability advocacy and policy, while in DC and he serves disability policy. Director for Chairman, Tom Harkin from the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. And was President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities among other roles.
Most recently, was asked to join the Biden Harris COVID-nineteen Health Equity Task Force, which is helping and developing recommendations for the White House COVID-nineteen response team. I appreciate his leadership and being here. My panel is Eric Garros, Executive Director of the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities. He's worked in civil rights policy and programs for over twenty years, including in the state Senate, California Attorney General, and as an appointee for two governors. Currently carrying out the council's goals of housing, employment and safety, which includes vaccines, PPE and PSPS.
Last year, council's work impacted more than 2,400,000 Californians and the council was named the Employer of the Year for people with disabilities. With that, let's go ahead and kick off the Q and A portion and we will turn it over to Aaron Caruthers for the first question. Mr. Caruthers.
Speaker 26
Thank you for that great introduction. You asked for a brief one. I should have been brief or I would have you were going to be reading them, but thank you so much. President Batchett, thank you and thank you to the commissioners for taking this focus. We're deeply grateful.
Many of us have been working on this issue since July 2019 when Vans called us all together at Cal OES and we've been deeply involved sometimes weekly in the IOU AFN statewide work group. Also thank you to the senior leadership for engagement on this panel. It's an engagement we haven't typically enjoyed on that statewide IOU AFN work group and because we haven't had you there let's go ahead and start this conversation off with a question which is really a level setting question for each IOU. In a simple yes or no answer, is AFN integration a high priority that your company has developed to ensure safety and resources for when it comes to customers who use life saving medical or assistive technology devices during PSPS events.
Speaker 18
Hi. Excuse me. Hi. This is Melissa Nottingham. I'm with Pacific Power and I would say yes to that question, absolutely.
Speaker 27
this is Lori Giamona. I serve as the company's Senior Vice President of Customer Care. We've absolutely integrated AFN, people with disabilities into our planning, into our programs, and into our structure, and in fact, have structured a PG and E council so that we can have ongoing dialogue and learn more and receive the feedback necessary to continue to improve our programs.
Speaker 12
This is Nicole Howard of born Edison. Can you hear me okay? Yes, so I would just answer that affirmatively. Absolutely. We consider the AFN community to be a high priority for us and ensuring that they have everything that they need during PSPS events.
Speaker 20
Hi, this is Tyshawn De Taylor. I am the Vice President of Customer Operations at San Diego Gas and Electric. And absolutely, we prioritize and integrate the access and functional needs, customers that are in need of access and functional needs. We've done so to the degree where we have an entire department dedicated to it. We started out with an individual that was in charge of the function and holds a spot in our emergency operations center.
And based on conversations and listening to our partners, we've expanded that to an entire department. And so we're definitely dedicated to supporting the need.
Speaker 26
Thank you, Tashanda, and I appreciate everybody with the senior level engagement, level setting this conversation. Happy to turn it over to Andy now for the next question.
Speaker 12
I will just affirm, Nicole Howard, I apologize, many of you have not met me yet. I am the Vice President of Customer Programs and Services at SCE and I answered affirmatively. But if Kevin has anything to add, please do.
Speaker 11
I'm just going to follow-up on Aaron's question again. I'm Andy Imparato. I'm the Executive Director of Disability Rights California. I've been in the role since February and returning to my home state of California after thirty years on the East Coast. So it's good to be back, but it's been a rough first year wildfires among many other things.
And one of the things that I've learned in doing disability advocacy is the value of having people with lived experience with disability in leadership. And I think you're seeing that both for the commission and for Cal OES that how they benefited from having people with lived experience playing leadership roles in their organizations. So my question for each of the IOU representatives is to just talk about your leadership. Each of your respective leadership teams consists of Chief Executive Officers, Executive Vice Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents and other officials. Oftentimes, the leadership teams are large.
PG and E, for example, has over 40 corporate and company officers. So my question for each of you is how many of the folks on your leadership team, however you define that, identify as people with disabilities or have lived experience with a disability? Does your company have a Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President or Vice President who's in charge of AFN integration? And is there a member of your leadership team whose entire portfolio consists of enterprise wide AFN integration?
Speaker 27
Great. Andy, thank you for the question. Insofar as speaking to those folks on our leadership team that have specific disabilities, I can't share I don't have that information to share. What I will tell you is that as a senior officer of PG and E, I have responsibility for the programs and services of our AFN community, our medical baseline community. I have a fully integrated team that reports directly through me.
So I have three officers on my team. They all have accountability for supporting our AFN community. In addition to that, I have I have ADA specialists on our team. Erin Johnson, who is with me today, as well as Vanessa Bryan, are all part of our integrated team, and they also have accountability for integrated disability focus, not only on our PSPS and emergencies, but throughout our organization and throughout the way that we execute safe and reliable power for our customers.
Speaker 20
Hi. Thank you for that question. We have we support AFN throughout the organization, but specifically under my span of control, like I said in my introductory comments, we have a dedicated team to support AFN activities. We recently secured a dedicated ADA specialist whose entire role is to integrate needs of ASN internally and externally. We take that extremely seriously, and we think that that's our responsibility to have a group that's dedicated to that function.
And so, like I said earlier, we've expanded that and we'll continue to look at ways to support that department and enhance it as much as we can. But that's we're dedicated to improving in this space and hence the support that we've backed behind having a dedicated department that's integrated within my organization and customer operations.
Speaker 10
I'm so sorry. I got I'm looking at my notes here and trying to make sure I don't ask each utility to answer in the same order every time, but sometimes I think I fumble around the companies. So we've heard from PG and E and STG and E. How about SCE?
Speaker 12
This is Nicole. I can answer for SCE. Just as a means of a little bit of background, again, I'm the Vice President of Customer Programs and Services at Southern California Edison. Just to level set, until about five months ago, I served as the Chief Customer Officer at SMUD, Sacramento Municipal Utility District. And you know, I have come here looking forward to listening and learning and really collaborating with this group of folks in order to understand the important concerns in front of our ASN communities in preparation for PSPS events.
As a person myself with access and functional needs, being single sided Deaf, I definitely share a unique understanding of the urgency in addressing the identified concerns. So I am an officer of the organization and in my span of control overseeing customer solutions for SCE, it is absolutely a priority. And again, I think my unique understanding as in lived experience is going to help us move forward and continue to do better in the preparation of our AFN customers and community.
Speaker 18
Hello again, this is Melissa. I just want to say that Pacific Corp, we are continuously focused on improving what we do and how we interact with our customers. And our executive team is dedicated not only to creating a work environment that is based on the principles of DEI, but also as we look more to our customers on how we can meet our customers where they're at and address the specific needs for a variety of different individuals. Now, have a very small service territory in Northern California, but we also have service territory in Oregon and Washington. And one of the things I think that we've seen as part of not only this PSVS rulemaking and the implementation of our plan is also with COVID and the variety of other issues that have adversely impacted our community.
So I'm here again to listen and learn and get some new ideas and support from this team and your expertise to see how we can better incorporate that into our processes and how we interact with our customers.
Speaker 10
Thank you. And does that get to your specific questions that you're asking there?
Speaker 11
Sorry, just taking it off mute. I think it's helpful. What I was really trying to get at is what is the level within the cover? One of the questions I was asking is what is the level within the company that owns the AFN function as their full time job, not as a piece of their portfolio. And it's not crystal clear to me what the answer to that is, but that was part of my question.
Speaker 10
Okay. So perhaps just a follow-up if anybody wants to chime in on that. I guess from the Caleres perspective that would be like, for example, my role to entire portfolio practice and functional needs, practice function needs in the title. And that position is a designated senior level executive position. I think maybe Andy, correct me if I'm wrong, if that's kind of what you're wondering, so AFN is part of what the executive team looks at, but it's only one of the executive team with AFN in the title for whose entire portfolio is AFN?
I'll just leave that open if anybody wants to answer that.
Speaker 20
Hi, this is Tashonda again from San Diego Gas and Electric. So I like I stated earlier, the ASN responsibilities falls under my umbrella. However, ASN is not in my official title, but I do have a manager that reports within my organization that is over the ASN responsibilities. To that manager, we have three project managers that report up through that organization, including an ADA specialist as we as I spoke to earlier. And I hope that answers the question.
Speaker 18
with Pacific Power. We don't we have the ASN outreach and communication in our wildfire mitigation plans is embedded into our processes. We don't have a specific dedicated resource for dealing with ASN. It's part of what we do and how we do it. I do want to point out with our PSPS event that we had in 2020, we had less than I think we had five customers that had been identified with that had medical access and functional needs, medical baseline customers that we contacted.
So just to kind of put it into scope that we just task our employees to embed those needs into everything they do.
Speaker 12
Hi, this is Nicole. I can elaborate a little bit more on my prior answer. I think, again, I have the responsibility for the suite of customer solutions and programs. I think the discipline in terms of ensuring that the needs of our AFN community are met fall within, I would say, the scope of the segmentation management role that's within my group, but it's a priority for many of us across the organization. We like to think about all of our customers in our processes and procedures in the way that we manage our customers through outage situations, and so I although I probably would be one to have some accountability over that, I believe that's something that is ingrained in our culture and we all feel the shared responsibility to make sure all of our customers are taken care of.
Speaker 10
Thanks Nicole. Aaron? And I guess that can be specific to Aaron. It's Aaron Johnson.
Speaker 15
slightly better question for Laurie, but I'll go ahead and take it. So we have Vanessa Bryan, who's a dedicated senior manager who does a variety of customer support. She has three people dedicated to AFN issues on her team. And we also have individual dedicated to ADA issues as Tushonda mentioned as well. And we also have event specific roles to communicate with the community based organizations that we work with to support our customers during events.
And those folks, there are specific event roles that are dedicated to make sure that they have a liaison.
Speaker 10
Excellent. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to switch over to Susan Anderson for some questions. And let's just find the order on the front end here.
We'll go reverse order, Pacific Core, SCE, SCGE and then PG and E. Okay, Susan.
Speaker 2
Okay. Hi, everybody. This is Susan Henderson from Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. It's nice to see you all. So, thank you for elaborating on the question that Andy asked upfront.
It sounds like you're all at different sort of different places in the process of AFN integration. So I would like to ask and this is just the quick question, I have a couple more after this but it sounds like some of you have senior leadership involved in the work but it's not an enterprise, that's not their sole job And I appreciate the work that you're all doing. But can you tell us whether you are planning on or would commit to creating a senior level position that over that's their sole role is overseeing and ensuring that there's AFN integration throughout the organization.
Speaker 18
Hi, I think I'm going first. I think that's a great idea. I don't think I'm in a position to commit to that today, but I appreciate that. I will take that back to the team.
Speaker 12
Sorry, from representing SCE if I'm next. Yeah. Okay. So again, I think that when I look at the responsibility of our making sure that all of our customers
Speaker 12
adequately served with our solutions to ensure that their customer experience is one that meets the value proposition for our customers. I think that is in alignment with my role. We do have specific individuals, senior advisor that is responsible for the ASN segment of customers. So really understanding the challenges, the needs, and the solutions that are specifically required and necessary in order to provide that full range of value for ASN community. So I am happy to be able to say that I think that we have that person in place and it is a part of the team that I oversee.
Part of that role also is to ensure that we are, as we look at our processes and our procedures that we are meeting that need for all of our segments of customers through our customer experience management. So I do think that we're headed down the right path. We may have some improvements that we definitely can make and look forward to continuing to get better in that role. But I do think we have the discipline and the focus and the passion to ensure that we're providing the best solutions for all of our customers and specifically as it relates to our ASN community.
Speaker 20
Thank you. So although we have a dedicated department and a manager along with three project managers that are dedicated to staffing the specifically dedicated ASN responsibility. I feel as if our senior leaders all have personal responsibility as well. I myself participate in the statewide call with my manager in terms of ASN, our regional work groups. We are all we all stay involved with the action items and different brainstorming that comes from working with those teams.
So we feel very proud of standing up a dedicated group. I think we're open to listening to any of the conversation as it regards to how far up in the organization that can be. But I will let you know that as a Vice President of Customer Operations at SDG and E, I stay extremely engaged with my manager for that dedicated effort in terms of what we're doing to enhance the program as well as staying involved with what we need to do to make it more robust. But we feel good about the positions that we've set up and the effort that we've put in place so far.
Speaker 10
going keep picking on the same people from each IRU. So if you feel like there's somebody else from the IRU that should answer that, please jump in and do so.
Speaker 27
Great. Thanks. Well, I'm going to answer this question because I ultimately am accountable as the senior executive at PG and E. But we believe in an integrated approach. We have a team that is comprised of a number of leaders within the customer organization that is focused on AFN, our communities of color, disabilities, our customers with disabilities, and our low income.
We believe that an integrated approach will help us provide in concert with our community based partners the best solutions for our customers. I also believe that it can't be the sole ownership of any one executive. We have to have an integrated approach across our organization. And examples of this are, we have all of our EOC structure, all those that serve in leadership roles when we have our incident command structure activated are going through AFN training. We have AFN support when we're activated in emergencies.
But more broadly, we want to really syndicate the needs of our customers across the organization so that there's not just one individual or one team that has sole responsibility for delivering for this very important customer group for us.
Speaker 2
Okay, thank you. I think that was everybody right? So the follow-up, so can you tell can each of you tell us how your company has been working with the disability AFN community to invest in the needs of the people with disabilities who require backup power during PSPS events? And then just also how you have been measuring the success of that investment, and of course how you plan to expand it because we know that we don't have people with disabilities with AFN needs covered throughout the state.
Speaker 5
No, I would love to talk about that, and thanks for the question, Susan,
Speaker 27
but I'd really like to have Vanessa Bryant and our team share what we're doing. I think that she's done a tremendous job working with all of you and our community leadership as well as our agency partners. And I would love to have her share of what we have been doing.
Speaker 29
Perfect. Thanks, Ann. All right. So in terms from a PG and E perspective, we have stood up not only our regional people with disabilities and aging advisory council, which some of the folks on the panel participate in, as well as participation with our joint IOU ASN Advisory Council at the state level, which some other folks also participate in. And all of the investor and utilities, we are also benchmarking with each other.
We have two calls a week and we explore how we're communicating with customers, what resources we're offering to our customers and what we can learn from each other to better provide a more consistent approach across the state. Specific to batteries and backup power, so we have this is twofold. We have we started our partnership with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, actually late in 2019, those discussions began, We were able to launch a full partnership in 2020. Through that partnership, as Christina mentioned, they developed a Disability Disaster Access and Resources program. That program was able to deploy over 1,000 batteries over the course of 2020.
Now we recognize that backup power batteries are not the only solution and in many cases, the Disability Disaster Access and Resource Centers were engaging with customers who actually needed more. So we have a multi pronged approach. It might be accessible transportation to a community resource center so that they can charge medical devices. It might be deploying one or more batteries so that they have enough power to power the devices that they're using. Or it may be that their power needs are far more than any portable backup battery could handle.
And in that case, they're able to coordinate hotel stays for those individuals so that they can have continuous power outside of the area where the shutoff is taking place. Now that's really meant to supplement our portable battery program. And the portable battery program, we stood up late in the year, we were able to deploy over 5,500 batteries. But before we deployed those, we actually sent letters to any customer that we believe could qualify for this program. Over 22,000 letters were sent to customers.
We engaged with over 12,000 customers and were able to complete assessments with over 8,000. Now from those numbers is when we actually arrived with the deployment of over 5,500 batteries, again based on need. Some customers were not interested or they had other solutions. Some customers the battery was not going to suffice for them. And so potentially again looking at supplementing that through the CFILC partnership during events.
And then there are some customers who we still have the opportunity to revisit and understand kind of how they would like to receive different solutions. We have different sized batteries. We might deploy multiple batteries. And so again, 6,500 batteries are in customer hands as of today. And we have another 5,000 that are either in inventory, we received them or they're on order with the goal of deploying those throughout the year in 2021.
Our goal, Susan, really is to make sure that any customer who resides in a high fire threat area, who is medical baseline customer and low income, if they would like a portable backup battery and that is the solution that will work for them that they will receive one. So thanks for the question.
Speaker 20
to introduce you Danielle because you've done so much work in this space and I want you to share some of it. At SDG and E, we are really excited about this because we've launched new support models with two eleven San Diego and two eleven Orange County, along with some community based organizations. And so I really would like to introduce our ASN manager, Danielle Kidd, to elaborate on some of the things that we've done under the new support model partnerships, as well as what we've done with supplying generators for medical baseline customers and beyond. So Danielle, I'll let you elaborate. Thank you, Tashanda, and thank you for confirming that my microphone is working.
I appreciate that. Nice to see you all. Vanessa did a really nice job describing a lot of the statewide collaborative efforts that we have going on, across the IOUs and with our AFN Statewide Council. And we do a lot of the, the same type of efforts at the regional level to constantly incorporate feedback. But I think our holistic look our approach really is a holistic look at this.
We want to provide backup battery generation to the right customers and we also want to include a broader suite of tools that can help, provide resiliency for our customers with access and functional needs during PSPS events. In 2020, we significantly ramped up our, we call it our generator grant program. And through that we offer, no cost generators to all of our medical baseline customers that had previously been impacted by a PSPS event. In 2021, we're looking to significantly expand and in fact, double that program to reach more like 2,500 customers, in our medical base, I'm sorry, of our medical baseline and other access and functional needs customers who might have self identify as having disabilities in our high fire threat district. Additionally, we did a to Jonna's point launch some port models in 2020 that we're looking to continue and to expand into 2021 that provide other services as well, such as hotel stays, accessible transportation, food delivery, welfare checks, and other items, in order to help customers in case the generator is not either only or the best solution.
Speaker 12
is our PSPS lead for the customer experience to offer some insights into the efforts that we underwent in 2020, but also some of the improvements that we're making in 2021. Jessica?
Speaker 20
Great, thank you. Thank you, Susan, for that good question. I do want to emphasize what has already been shared by my counterparts that Vanessa, Danielle, and I meet regularly on a weekly basis to talk about how we can better serve our ASN customers. In terms of backup battery power, I wanted to share a couple of updates. Our main backup battery program is our critical care backup battery program.
And as many of you are aware, we launched this in mid July of last year. And I'm happy to report we've made some really great progress by really expanding not only our eligibility criteria to involve all of our medical baseline customers, but we've also greatly increased our outreach. So as of March 15, we have more enrollments in our critical care backup battery program, than we did all of, last year. So we've really stepped up our efforts there and happy to announce that. In terms of our partnership with our ASN community, we have partnered with organizations such as two eleven starting in 2019 to help with backup batteries as well as other services like transportation.
We've also partnered with the independent living centers to help with battery donations as well. And we work very closely with our network of 1,600 community based organizations to help to partner to understand the needs of our ASN population. We also have portable backup battery programs in case we have customers that don't meet some of the income eligibility of our other programs. And then lastly, I just want to mention that I really see this as a funnel approach. And instead of just the backup battery programs, we are expanding our marketing and outreach so that more and more customers can be enrolled in our medical baseline program as well.
I'm sure we'll talk more about that. But I just wanted to mention that. We have been talking with members of our statewide ASN Council, such as Erin Caruthers and Christina Mills, about leveraging other organizations such as the in home support services and regional centers to really reach that ASN population to expand. And so actually today and tomorrow, we're holding training sessions on our medical baseline program with County health care workers of IHSS, and we've gotten a really big turnout so far. So just a quick overview of some of the things that we're doing,
Speaker 20
we measure our progress with our CBOs with monthly reports in terms of engagements as well. So thank you.
Speaker 2
Sure. Can I just ask you a quick question quick follow-up since the other folks mentioned, and it will save us time later? Do you have an idea of a number of you were talking about leased batteries that have been deployed in 2020 and if there were some left over and what the plan is for 2021, like the number of batteries you might be deploying?
Speaker 20
Yes, sure, definitely. So as everyone might be aware, we did have a bit of a late start in 2020. And so what we are aiming for this year in 2021 is our expanded population for our critical care backup battery program is at about 12,000 customers. That's our top number in terms of our eligibility according to our database. So our goal is that we can make the critical care backup battery program want to make our customers, all 12,000 aware, which we have been doing through multiple direct mail letters and calls.
And so our goal is that to get as many of our batteries out to
Speaker 10
Excellent. Okay. I think Pacific Corp is going to answer and then I think Eric Carruthers has a question.
Speaker 18
Yes. Hi. Pacific Corp, but I kind of talked a little bit and touched base on the footprint of our service territories, 11,000 square miles with approximately 45,000 customers. So one of the most critical relationships that we have is the community based organizations that they're one of the most vital touch points with our customers. And we have developed and we will continue to have partnership with them in order to get information out to our customers regarding the PSPS and wildfire safety.
As a matter of fact, we're looking at a more wraparound service, we're able to provide information on low income rates, weatherization, medical baseline eligibility, wildfire mitigation plans, additional notification prior to a PS. So we really partner with and rely heavily on those agencies to help us get the message out to our customers that are most in need. As part of our Pacific Power Community Resiliency Program, we are just offering grants for renewable backup generators. The intent of that is to work with the County Emergency Management Services to be able to deploy those backup generators to critical need customers that are needing the extra help with oxygen or any other type of metal equipment in anticipation of a PSPF. So that is a new program.
I look forward to reporting more on that later. So thank you.
Speaker 26
Yeah, thank you so much. I'm glad you brought up the medical baseline program because it's a rebate, it's a discount program, was it's rates, it was never designed to be used for a PSPS or emergency management capacity. The ASM community has been uniform in our advice that the IOUs move away from the medical baseline. We've urged that you instead use the more effective and meaningful customer program to be developed to support vulnerable customers. We proposed alternate ways that are more inclusive.
Medical baseline was never designed to be this. Additionally it doesn't have the reach of the saturation it needs to have. At the reports that SCE gave to the CPUC in December for a ten day event in their region, they were very proud that all seven ninety eight customers were impacted were reached. This is evidence to us that this program is resource intensive, it's foot labor intensive and it's not getting the reach. I've consistently advocated that there needs to be a different way and I guess my question is why haven't the IOUs moved away from the medical baseline model and developed a new clear inclusive proactive plan that can be in place for the next wildfire season?
Speaker 20
Thank you, Erin, for that question. I understand your concern. We definitely feel like we've been successful with our medical baseline program thus far. We have about 12,000 customers in our high fire threat district that are a part of our medical baseline customer program, although we're open to hearing and listening today in terms of recommendations and suggestions that some of you may have. I'd like to give Danielle an opportunity to expand on some of the ways that we utilize our medical baseline program to support this function.
But as I stated before, we confident that we're doing everything we can to notify and reach out, but we're here to learn and try to get recommendations on other things that you all may want us to look at and consider. So we're all ears, but I would like Danielle to elaborate on some of the things we are doing related to medical baseline. Thanks, Deshonda, and thank you, Erin,
Speaker 20
Yes, Danielle, we can hear you. Thanks. I had a little bit of a headset issue. Thank you Erin. I would like to think that we are heading down that path and that we've made some progress.
As you know in 2020, really did start to develop a program that's dedicated to our customers with access and functional needs separately from medical baseline. And that really encompasses our partnership with two eleven, with Jewish Family Services, FACT and with many others that's really about providing support during PSPS events and it's really separate from medical baseline. But to your point that has been a way to identify customers who might need assistance And as that is one of the programs that we do have, we have continued to in parallel, continue to more heavily market medical baseline and something we want to continue in parallel with doing to make sure that customers who are eligible do receive the benefits of that program while we work with stakeholders like yourself and others to figure out how we enhance this broader approach to our customers with access and functional needs.
Speaker 26
Yeah, I think the answers so far are really helpful because what I'm hearing is that we've had the conversation for again a year and a half at the statewide ASN body and it sounds like this might be new request or new approach or new information. I'd like to get in more engagement there or Andy, I think you had a follow-up.
Speaker 11
Yes, actually, I think Christina Mills is going go next and then I'm happy to go after Christina.
Speaker 30
Thanks, Andy. Can you hear me? Great to see everyone today. Commissioner Rexhaw, great to see you in a different environment besides voice options. I want to get straight to the point.
I know time is of the essence. The CDC the sorry. The CDC reported last year that one in four people across the nation has some sort of disability or chronic illness. Can each of you definitively say that your IOU has identified customers who rely on power to maintain life sustaining medical devices or assistive technology when the power goes out? That's question one.
And then what strategies are you going to use to identify customers moving forward? And how many total AFN customers is your company currently tracking and supporting during a PSPS event?
Speaker 29
Thank you, Laurie. Sorry for jumping in there. Christina, thanks for the question. I mean, we've all we've had this conversation continuously, right? This is a challenge that we recognize.
So in answer to your question about have we accurately identified, I think we have made a big improvement. And what I mean by that is we have grown our medical baseline population by over 26% in the last year. We've already grown by another 5% this year. But we recognize that it's more than just medical baseline, Erin, to your comment. And so we are incorporating additional categories into how we're identifying AFM customers.
And that includes customers that self identify to receive an in person visit before disconnection for non payment, customers that self identify as having a person with a disability in the household, customers who self select to receive utility communications in a non standard format, then customers who indicate a non English language preference. We also should note that we have customers who would be considered part of the access and functional needs community that are part of our CARE and our FARA program. So it's a much broader program. The next question though becomes what do those customer groups need and how does it differ, right? And if someone is reliant on power for medical device needs, for example, their needs are much different than someone maybe who is low income.
And so what PG and E has done is we are partnering with healthcare providers. So we've had conversations with a number of providers, they are promoting our medical baseline program accordingly with the individuals they engage with, who that may be, you know, receiving these devices that they need to rely upon. And we are we are also along the same lines that Jessica mentioned, making sure that we're engaging with IHSS and that we're doing the appropriate training so that folks can help customers identify that this might be the right program for them. Now folks may not want to fill out an application, they may not be able to visit a doctor to get that certification, so we recognize that customers who self identify to receive an in person visit before disconnection also need to be considered. Both our medical baseline program customers and individuals who self identify to receive an in person visit before disconnection will receive the regular notifications that every customer receives.
They will receive hourly retries to make sure that they received the notification and if they do not acknowledge, they will then we will complete a door knock to make sure that in fact they are aware that the public safety power shutoff occurring. The medical baseline program does help us prioritize because we've done analysis and when we look at to your point, Christina, our entire population of customers based on census data and the data that we have in our database, like all the different categories that I previously mentioned, we have nearly 80% of our customer base that then becomes part of the AFN population. And again, we need to prioritize those who are going to have the most vulnerability when it comes to the lack of power. So the last part that I'll point out and then please feel free to jump in if there's something that I didn't answer that you were looking for is that programs such as the Disability Disaster Access and Resources Program do not require that an individual prove that they are the customer of record, note that they are part of the medical baseline program. It is simply something that they can take advantage of if they are impacted by PSPS and they were reliant on power for medical and independent living needs.
So I think we all have an opportunity to continue to promote the applicable programs. We are exploring opportunity to learn from San Diego Gas and Electric and their relationship with two eleven. And I think we'll continue the conversation about how we better identify. And then the second piece really is what then is the appropriate treatment depending on that identification or what are the additional needs of that component of the populations that we can best serve them. And we certainly rely on community based organizations to help broaden our message.
The final piece that I will add that we were asked about earlier this morning is our address alerts. Now any customer of any of the utilities is going to receive notification in advance of a PSPS event, but we recognize that not everyone is a customer of record. They're not all account holders. So at PG and E, we had launched the zip code alerts in 2020 and we received feedback through our people with disabilities and aging advisory council that those communications were too broad and they were actually causing some confusion. The suggestion was can you get more specific And so we are happy to report that we have address alerts that can be received in phone or text.
So interactive voice response or text. They are in 16 languages total. They are live now. We are going to launch a multi channel promotional campaign to make sure that individuals are aware of this option beginning next month. And that is going to be advertising.
It is going to be direct mail to a number of renters that we've been able to identify that are not our customers of record. We're certainly going to rely on our community based organizations to promote this. And then the account holders of our master metered accounts as well as individuals who hold accounts for multi tenant dwelling so that they have this information that they can post around their locations and make sure that we're really penetrating the population that needs to be able to get notification directly from the utility for the exact address that they're interested in.
Speaker 10
So Thanks so much. I think rather than go to the other three IRUs, let's go to Andy first question.
Speaker 11
Okay, thanks. I guess, what I think a lot of us are realizing is we had too many questions and the responses, we're just not going to get through everything we wanted to ask. So I guess I just wanted to kind of take it to a little bit of a bigger picture level. I think what you're hearing from those of us who've been asked to come and ask questions from the disability community is we want to see a higher level of the conversation and we think if we get a higher level conversation, we'll accelerate decision making and accelerate progress in a way that's going to save lives and make the public safety power shutoffs do less harm to the people who experience harm when they happen. So I guess what I would ask on behalf of our group is if there's an opportunity for us to have a meeting with leaders in the utilities that are represented here today, ideally at a SVP level or up where we can have a little bit more time to kind of get through all of our questions and suggestions and then come back to the CPUC with a report out after we've had a chance to really go through some of these issues that we're not going to get to today.
We would really appreciate it. And if we could do that before the May, at least have the meeting before the May so that it can be impact what happens in the upcoming fire season that would be ideal. So I'll just put that request out there.
Speaker 17
And again, is David Van Dyken, quick time check. We have fifteen minutes left in our panel.
Speaker 10
Okay. So per Andrew's question, I guess, just go down the line. So let me start with SDG and E.
Speaker 20
Thank you, Andy, for that question. And we would love the opportunity to have a meeting to further discuss what more we can do, share some details, more details about the program, but also just hear your concerns and figure out what more we can do to try to address those, hopefully before the upcoming fire season. The only thing I would ask is, I think at the Vice President level would be fine, but I think you hear a lot of senior advisors and managers on this call representing our companies that are on the front lines working with our CDOs, working with our organizations like two eleven San Diego, Orange County, the other cities represented, working on a lot of initiatives that could also add additional context, color and recommendations to the program. So I wouldn't want to leave them out, but I also recognize that at the leadership level, accountability stops with us and I would welcome to have that conversation.
Speaker 12
Thank you. I echo Tushanda's comments. We would welcome that opportunity as well. And in fact, I think having those ongoing conversations and that dialogue will help us reach those go forward solutions that may not be in front of us today. Think more heads together thinking about what we can do differently than what we've done in the past is a good next step and welcome that opportunity to participate.
I would also extend, and this is my personal perspective coming from a publicly owned utility prior to an investor owned, it might be good to reach out to other utilities and broaden the circle a little bit. I think that most utilities, if not all, have similar challenges in meeting our populations, our ASN population, and perhaps there's other learnings there that we can address and adopt. So that's just another idea to consider.
Speaker 18
Yeah. I think that's a wonderful idea. I definitely see that increased understanding and listening and being able to understand. Like you said, there's a lot of questions. I may not have been able to answer them or provide the detail you're looking for.
So I we are always open to more dialogue and more communication because it just leads to a better understanding of the needs and and tapping in your expertise in the work that you do. So I would say absolutely yes, that would be something we'd be willing to do. And like other utilities have stated, I think the managers and the directors also that are boots on the ground that are doing the work would be invaluable as part of that process. You.
Speaker 27
We'd be happy to participate. We think by bringing all of the IOUs together along with those that are appropriate to really have a broader discussion would be really helpful. You have my commitment along with Sumeet who was here earlier today and Erin that we as the senior leaders will be ready to engage and participate along with our team. So we welcome the opportunity. I would offer, we've learned so much being part of the state agency collaborative on this issue, as well as having our own counsel at PG and E.
So I hope that we can leverage the learnings from that extended group as well.
Speaker 10
Thanks. Thanks, Laurie. Aaron Krothers, I think we've got another question for you.
Speaker 26
Thanks, Van. It's been really interesting and I hope everybody's walking away with a new sense of understanding from this conversation because after having been engaged in conversations for a year, year and a half, what I'm taking away is really a sense of pride in the work that the IOUs are doing. And there seems to be a disconnect because we're we're we just don't think we're talking about progress. You're talking about progress of 5% to 25%. And what we're talking about is we need progress like 5000%.
We need huge numbers of expansion and proactive inclusive ways to get there. Through the different forums somehow that message hasn't been getting through. So I'm hoping that today that message is getting through. I'm hoping that our conversations I understand you need to have field expertise but senior level management I think has been maybe part of the barrier has been missing in those conversations. So I'm hoping that our follow-up conversations whether you come to the statewide AFN task force or we come in and meet just in a smaller group is important.
So let's start drilling down on some of those issues together. And some of the questions that we still have remaining is, what is the escalation process and outcomes for AFN customers who are in need of support during an active PSPS event? How do disabled AFN customers know who to contact or what to do if they need support during a PSPS event? How are the IOUs meeting the needs of the disabled AFN customers during PSPS events? How many AFN customers that require electric powered medical or assistive technology devices did your company provide resources to in 2020?
Oftentimes how come some of these elements aren't incorporated into the plans that you've submitted to the CPUC? We've made recommendations regarding the effectiveness of the battery program, the PG and E pilot that it should be expanded to other places. We didn't really see that incorporated in your plans. So there's I threw a lot out there. Pick one, some or none of them but really I'm walking away heartened by the commitment for high level engagement on these questions.
Speaker 10
All right. Thanks Aaron. And that was sort of a multitude of questions or so. I don't expect everybody's going to answer any one of those. But to Aaron's point, it's similar to like the fab, but some or for others in the next couple of minutes.
And then we'll wrap up the session with the understanding that two things will happen on the outcome or following the meeting. One, perhaps any questions that weren't answered or asked could go forward to values. That way you can see them and provide a response. And also that it sounds like there'll be a follow on meeting with the group's IUs to discuss these issues.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Both Andy and Aaron talked about the meeting and you all getting together with the IOUs senior leadership. I think that's all terrific. But you also talked about coming back to us and reporting back to us on the learnings and what you had perhaps agreed to. I would really welcome that.
I know my fellow commissioners would as well. So that would be very, very helpful for us to hear and be better informed on some of these really important questions like expanding greatly and more specifically into the people need and the numbers that need to increase. We have been very worried about it and have voiced it almost every opportunity we could particularly in the backup battery and other types of things that need to be done so people that have medical needs and financial needs are not left literally with nothing. No electricity, and we also have to worry about no telecommunications also. So I look forward to you reporting back after you have your meetings.
And to Andy's point, I think it was Andy, perhaps it was Erin, that it needs to happen before the May. So if there are things we can institute before the height of the fire season, that would be very helpful. As Chief Porter said this morning, we're very concerned about this upcoming fire season. We are in drought conditions, severe drought conditions throughout much of the state now. We don't have the snowpack we need, and there's a lot of fuel.
So anyways, I would really welcome hearing back from you after your meeting.
Speaker 11
Can I just say something quickly in response to President Butcher? I hope I'm pronouncing your name right.
Speaker 11
just want to thank you for your comments and for understanding the importance of this issue. If there's a meta message that I hope you and your fellow commissioners can take away today, it's that access and functional needs issues are not small issues, they're not niche issues and they're growing in importance as the whole issue of wildfires is growing in importance in California. And that if we get these issues right, it's going to help the whole state be better prepared. These issues, again, if we think them through and get them right, they benefit the whole population. Any of us can experience a functional need and access need in any circumstance.
So if we think this through, it's going to benefit the whole population and that's why we keep looking for a higher level of leadership on these issues. But thank you very much, President Butcher for your leadership.
Speaker 17
And this is David Van Dijkien. We have five minutes left. So if anybody from our panel or the IOUs want to make any final thoughts or statements or if any of our CPC commissioners have any last thoughts or questions.
Speaker 10
Okay. Let's open for a minute and then I've got a comment, but I want to wait and see if anybody has anything in summary.
Speaker 2
From Badger, David, this is Genevieve. I don't want to have two minutes left, but you know the Low Income Oversight Board back in June, a year ago June, June 2020 did receive an update at that point in time about the efforts being made by the utilities for the AFN customers. And we heard a little bit about the non English speakers and also the use of community based organizations that I think there was some mention of that. But if anybody wants to amplify on that as well for these older adults, low income people with physical developmental intellectual disabilities, again any partnerships with community based organizations to really amplify the work for what needs?
Speaker 29
Commissioner Sharma, this is Vanessa Bryan with PG and E. Thank you for that question. I will tell you that from a PG and E perspective, we've partnered with five in language CBOs to deliver communications to customers in indigenous languages during and before, during and after PSPS events. We've also partnered with a number of multicultural media groups that can push our message out in up to 13 different languages. So we recognize that that is definitely an opportunity.
We provide them with social media posts that they can they're ready to go. They simply download them and they can post them. They're in language. They're specific to the PSPS event so we can help broaden the message to individuals where English isn't a primary language. In addition, PG and E just this week has launched the capability for customers to select any of the 16 languages that we offer our notifications in when they log into their account or when they call the contact center.
And so they can identify that they would like to receive their notifications specifically in those languages that we have identified as prevalent based on the previous rulings. And the other part that I'd love to touch on is related to our low income customers. Erin, you asked how many people we actually helped or how many people we actually served that had medical needs. In 2020, we delivered or we were able to deliver over 30,000 food replacement boxes following PSPS events. And that was really for the zip codes that were impacted where we know that there were low income customers who losing, you know, their food is highly impactful and replacement of that food immediately is more important than potentially trying to process a claim or something of that nature.
We recognize that this was the best way to get the food back in the hands of those individuals who need it. In relation to medical baseline customers, our customers are reliant on power for medical needs. We know that in conjunction with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers and their Disability Disaster Access and Resources Program, that they engaged with over 4,500 customers. They're making proactive calls to individuals they know already have a plan. They're also responding to calls.
So from an escalation perspective, and I think I speak for all the IOUs, we have a process by which to escalate inquiries that come in through our contact centers during PSPS events where there's a request for additional assistance. Then we can engage with our CBOs accordingly. That's why that CBO liaison position is really important during our PSPS events and we've been talking about that on our joint IOU calls that we have weekly that I have with Danielle and Jessica. So certainly we've been able to assist people, but to your point there is far more to do. I think we're really in our infancy in what we've been able to provide and who we've been able to partner with.
And so your continuous feedback is important. And we haven't mentioned everything in our reports that we issue because we are still working through some of that feedback and developing what that program would be. We would hate to come out with something that isn't completely flushed out and that isn't going to be the right solution for our customers. And while all maintaining being good stewards of the dollar, when we think about how we're providing this to our customers and the cost. So certainly, we do not want to we want to make sure that we are managing against risk and that we are providing the resources to the individuals who need it.
But we also want to be really mindful about how we're developing what those solutions are. So your continued partnership with all the panelists that we do engage with in several fora is appreciated and we hope that it continues.
Speaker 2
Vance and David, I have a question to a follow-up question of Vanessa, if I may, please. I know we're very short on time now. It's over. Thank you. You've just raised something very important, Vanessa.
We hear continually in our public comment period from people that have had difficulty escalating it. They don't if they try and call, they can't get through. They have great means like now, and they have a very hard time understanding how to escalate their question. And we have had this from all the IO complaints, concerns about all the IOUs. So I would no question there, but I would really underscore to all of you that your escalation from your complaint or from a customer calling that needs assistance, really, I would streamline that.
I would get that down to a science. I would let your CVO partners know what you're doing because this is a very strong complaint, and people have gone days days with no answers, days without electricity and no answers. So I would would say if you don't have an escalation plan, please put one in in in gear. And if you have one, make it good. So thank you.
Speaker 10
just want to say, in closing, I know we're already two minutes over. So I appreciate hearing about progress gets reported on. I just would say it reminded me a little bit about many moons ago, my daughters and I went to a art gallery. We're looking at a piece of art, which if you look at it from one side is blue, if you look at from the opposite side, it's red. I stood in the middle and watched them debate each other over what color that painting was.
And I think we're looking at this issue and we're all committed to the issue. But what I hear is a lot of concern that the outcomes aren't there yet, But there are still gaps, but there are still needs being unmet. And so I think a follow on meeting that everybody's already agreed to is a wonderful way to put some solutions on there, right, because if you think it's blue and that's great progress, and somebody else sees red, and that's a major gap. I think getting together and really having that discussion is the right way to land on how do we really get to where we need to be. So I thank everyone for their commitment to get there And for the report out, I'm looking forward to next steps.
That will absolutely be reported back to the CBC, President Batcher, and we'll thank everyone for the minute closeout.
Speaker 17
I want to thank definitely all of our AFN panelists, all of the representatives from the IOUs. I think we had a good question and answer session today. And we'll be following up with IOUs and the panelists to help facilitate that follow-up meeting. So with that, if there's no last burning questions from any of our commissioners, I'll hand it over to our next panel, which is on local tribal governments.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, David. And I want to add my voice to yours as well, thanking all of the AFN panelists for your rich and good and helpful questions. And I know you had many you were not able to get to, and I hope that those will be able to be asked and answered in your future follow-up meetings. I also want to thank the investor owned utilities who joined and listened in. Very important, I made a couple of calls here, companies to make sure that happened today, and I appreciate that you answered that call.
So thank you very much, everyone. Thank my fellow commissioners as well. And as you said, David, we are going to now move on to our second panel of the day, which is local government and tribes roundtable. We'll give everyone a few minutes to organize. And of course, Stephanie Green from the California Public Utilities Commission will be our moderator.
And I don't see you on yet Stephanie, but I'm sure you're joining in. There you are. There you are. Good. I'm going to turn it over to you now, Stephanie.
Oh, we can't hear you. There's no audio. Can't hear. Nope. Still no audio.
Still can't. Nope. You may have muted your computer.
Speaker 21
Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Perfect.
I'm just going to wait. Don't know. Robert, can you let me see if the other panelists are on? They should start to be showing.
Speaker 21
It was Linda, Doug, Steven, Keith. So they are all here? There we go. Yay. Okay.
Well, everyone. Let's we're already running a few minutes late, so let's get started. I am Stephanie Green. I oversee the Commission's Business and Community Outreach Office. And I would like to welcome our panelists for the next session, which will include our esteemed representatives from local government and the community.
We have Linda Hopkins from Sonoma County Supervisor. We should have Doug Peter, who is Dubuque County Supervisor. Steve Crowder, who's the mayor of Paradise, Keith Mashburn, who's the mayor of Simi Valley, Masseef Hagobian, intergovernmental relations analyst for Santa Clarita, Joshua Saxon, who is the Executive Director for the Karuk Tribe and Bill York, is the President and CEO of two thousand eleven San Diego. Those are our panelists. We will also be joined by utility representatives.
That is Erin Johnson, the VP of Wildfire Safety and Public Engagement for PG and E Michael Winn, Senior Advisor and Local Public Affairs for Southern California Edison Amy Olson, who is senior advisor of local government and Native American tribes for Southern California Edison. And Jennifer Summers, who's the director of tribal relations and land services for San Diego Gas and Electric. And then we have Todd Todd Andrews, who's Regional Business Manager for Pacific Corp. And Justin Buchartek, who's Director of Emergency Management for Pacific Corp. And those are our panelists today and then the utility reps.
So I would like to start off our session today by asking each of our panelists if they could tell us about their community and how public safety power shutoffs have impacted their community and what their top state public safety concerns are. I'd like to start with supervisor Hopkins. Supervisor Hopkins, can you give us just a couple minutes to talk about PSPS in your community? Yes, thank you so much, Stephanie. Can you hear me?
I can hear you. Thank you.
Speaker 32
Perfect. Well, you know, I'd like to start off first by saying that we have come a long way since we first started off on this public safety power shutoff journey, And I do want to thank PG and E for the improvements that we have made thus far. I recall a day in the not so distant past when Sonoma County was actually the first county in the state of California to send a representative down to PG and E's emergency operations center where she was promptly placed in an empty conference room and was literally walled off from information as well as decisions. I think this was the same incident when the PG and E website also crashed repeatedly in the run up to a PSPS, which meant that we had a lot of confused and concerned constituents in Sonoma County. We have come a long way, and I really do want to say that we receive more information earlier and more frequently from PG and E staff now as we go into PSPS events, which I really, really appreciate.
Notably, PG and E has also improved website with real time mapping for members of the public, we haven't had those technology issues or crashes in our recent events. At the same time, there are still some improvements that need to be made. I want to acknowledge that community resource center implementation has seemed to be sporadic. We've actually had to advocate politically in order to receive community resource centers, particularly in vulnerable, disadvantaged, low and at risk communities, low income communities as well. In some cases, we actually had to stand up our own community resource centers and were left to pick up the tab on the taxpayer's dime.
Similarly, we do continue to extend a substantial amount of taxpayer resources reaching out to our vulnerable community residents, aka those medical baseline customers, in order to ensure that they don't fall through the cracks. This work takes place through our health and human services department. And I know that you've already spent some time on access and functional needs this this morning, so I won't go into that in too great detail, but if there's one thing that I can impress upon all of you that I think we really need to devote more attention to, is emergency communications infrastructure. During the Kincade fire, which was anticipated to burn through tens of thousands of homes and not stop burning until it hit the Pacific Ocean, CAL FIRE and the sheriff actually proactively evacuated tens of thousands of residents early because they knew that we would be losing power. And because they knew that without power, in terrain already lacking in redundant communications infrastructure, they would have no way of communicating with constituents.
I I also wanna, you know, think it's important to remember that, of course, fires start for other reasons than Cuban E. We obviously suffered through, you know, the lightning complex last year. But PSPS is an emergency on its own, and it requires a local government response. But what's worse about it is that it actually is an emergency that limits our ability to respond to other emergencies in real time. So during the Kincaid, for instance, I had fire departments that only had access to radio communications, And we can't rely on analog anymore.
It's a digital world, and firefighting increasingly relies on higher tech infrastructure and, you know, database communications. They can actually coordinate in real time, where the fire is, where even the folks are. They actually now have an ability to track firefighters and engines as they move around the fire front. Access to data is really critical especially for our fire stations. You know, I also had communities where unfortunately people stayed, right?
They got lucky this time and they did not burn, but had the fire gone through, we really would have been limited in our communications infrastructure to respond. I also want to add one other technicality which is that we have a lot of small municipal water districts. Those water districts rely on power to pump water which then ultimately supplies the community with water during a fire event and not all of them have backup systems or not all of them have backup systems that are of the level that would be required in a wildfire response.
Speaker 32
which is really not just for the IOUs or for the CPUC, for the entire state of California. How can we facilitate non polluting, non greenhouse gas emitting, backup sources of power for critical infrastructure? And also, how can we ensure that perpetual disaster response doesn't bankrupt local government? Because right now, we still are left picking up the tab for a lot of the response for these PSPSs, and it's not just that. Right?
Then it's also a pandemic. It's also fire. It's also flood season, and so it really starts to impact our ability to deliver critical services to our constituents. Thank you so much for the opportunity to spend a few minutes speaking with you today, and thank you so much for your time and attention on this matter.
Speaker 21
Thank you, Supervisor Hopkins. Supervisor Peter, would you like to go next?
Speaker 31
Oh, yeah. Thank you very much. And it's first, I should ask, can you hear me?
Speaker 31
Okay. You never know. You start yapping and then you never get connected. And my video didn't work, so I apologize, but I have a face for radio. It's always great to follow supervisor Linda Hopkins because I could just replace the names of the locations and say ditto.
As folks may know Butte County is a little above Sacramento. We're about 219,000 in population, 16% based on the current census data is in poverty. About a third of the county is in very high fire hazard areas and my guesstimate would be about half the county has been affected by PSPS. Major events have come to Butte County. The Oroville Dam, although that was kind of in the winter months, that resulted in 188,000 that were reported evacuated and you know it's uncertain when such large infrastructure failures could occur, but imagine trying to evacuate that amount of people in a PSPS event.
Camp fire, for those that know, 142,000 acres, 19,000 structures. I know Mayor Crowder is on the phone. He lost his house. I lost my house in that as well as many of our residents. And then last year we had the North Complex fire of about 319,000 acres and a loss of 2,400 structures.
I would say probably some of the struggles with PSPS, Some reason our jail, the county jail in Oroville got cut off for twenty four hours. Lift stations for the sewage and potable water ceased in that and so that was quite a surprise. I would it's safe to say that they PG and E has restructured how power is delivered to that. So we haven't had an event like that again, but that was a shock. A lot of our citizens live in remote areas and they rely on Wi Fi in place of spotty cell phone and so when you lose power, they lose the internet and they the result is authorities unable to contact citizens in those areas.
PSPS was scheduled prior to the Camp Fire, but the line that caused the fire I've been informed wasn't going to be included in that shutoff. Some of the concerns is you know it's in the news U. S. District Judge William Alsop may force more shutoffs and one article I read said Butte County could expect a doubling of PSPS. So you know I think it's hard to quantify you know the effect PSPS has on my district which includes Paradise Magalia that was pretty much destroyed by the Camp Fire But I would guess it causes a lot of people to have concerns about rebuilding especially those near or at the poverty line that can't afford generators and also business development.
It's challenging for businesses to have to count on generators to do their business and I really feel that folks are choosing to go elsewhere and instead of rebuilding in our communities. I'd say my top safety priority is emergency notification and then hazard fuel reduction in your power lines and I appreciate being on the panel today.
Speaker 21
Thank you so much and let's move to kind of Mayor Crowder. Is is mayor Steve Crowder on the line? Okay. Well, we'll come back. Is that Mayor Crowder?
Okay. I'm going to move on and let's go to Mayor Mashburn.
Speaker 33
Good afternoon. First, I'd like to give a little bit of an introduction and thank you for inviting me to be on this panel. I'm the elected mayor of a city of 126,000 people at Simi Valley just north of Los Angeles County. And I am a former Ventura County Fire Battalion Chief and over the last ten years served as the Chief Fire Investigator for the County Of Ventura. In 2020 we had six PSPS events and they lasted twenty four to seventy two hours.
And in case you're not familiar with much unlike those that have already spoken, our city is very urbanized. We are not in a wildland area. We have some outlying areas that are wildfire areas. However, the city proper has very, very little exposure to actual wildland fires. So in our case, public safety or power shutoffs are anything but public safety.
It's just quite the opposite. The most dangerous aspect of the PSPS events for our city has been it shuts down the traffic signals for our throughout the city. And these are in areas once again that are not anywhere near any wildland areas and yet we're told over and over again that this is going to prevent wildland fires. And the potential loss for life due to traffic collisions is absolutely astonishing in our city. And we have claims and we're expecting more claims for the many traffic accidents that were caused by the lack of powered traffic signals.
It appears to us that Edison transferred their wildfire liability in a different form to the city's businesses and the residents they serve because there certainly is no wildfire threat here. One of the difficulties that we have as a city is we have to run out and do some kind of notification in these intersections that there actually is an intersection here and it's normally controlled. And we place temporary stop signs and A frames what have you. But the law indicates that once we put up any type of notification we take on the liability. And that liability I believe should be the liability of the power company because they're the ones that turned off the power and eliminated the use of those intersections.
And then again the cost that comes to the city, we've as a council have authorized the purchase and the installation of 50 and that's not even I think we have over 70 intersections or 50 of them and the cost is going to be over $600,000 to put temporary battery backups. And again, in these times of COVID, pandemics and economic difficulties, It's a hard pill to swallow to have to come up with that kind of money. But then on the other hand, we are here to protect the people. One of the or two of the circuits actually serve the City Hall that I'm in right now. And these are shut down.
City Hall is and our senior center is nowhere near a wild land area, but we routinely lose power. And areas that we've set up to help our vulnerable people, cooling centers, food prep that type of thing is no longer in use because of the lack of power. So at the cost of $850,000 we're researching the purchase of generators to back up the system because we simply cannot rely on constant source from the power provider. Again, the senior center and the public library are cooling centers during extreme weather events. And again, in fact one of them was borrowed by Edison to use for one of their resource centers and then they found oh we can't use it.
You don't have any power. So it gets spread widespread. The city anticipates our city Simi Valley anticipates spending $1,450,000 just to accommodate SCE's PSPS events And that's a very large hit to our city. Of course, I can go into great detail about what it does to the food that the company would say, okay, we'll give non perishable food back to the citizens. Well, the citizens have already lost all their perishable foods because of a lack of refrigeration and it hardly is a substitute for what they had and the company giving nondescript foods for those who need special diets and what have you.
It's just not a good replacement program. When you I heard one of the supervisors talk about the water and we have our own water district. And again, it's at a very high cost that we have to send people out with generators and continuously provide power to get the water service back that is lost because of the PSPS event. Our public works cost alone is $175,000 and that's in 2021 alone. So I think I don't want to echo what the others have said about the need of our medical customers, people that rely on power to keep medical devices going and the response times and the number of staff that have to deal with these people.
And I heard others that said the communications has been very lacking and inaccurate is the best way to put it. People will call and say when are we going to get our power back on? It'll be on tomorrow at two and it turns out it's three days later, far beyond. Or maybe just the opposite in some cases where you're not going to have power for forty eight hours and three, four hours later boom you have power after they started making all of these arrangements to go elsewhere and to obtain housing. The improvements made, there have been some improvements on our circuits.
There has been some areas where they've reduced the number of residents impacted and we see that as a very good thing. And as we review the different circuits, I have to I always come back to when I was a fire investigator we had a program that we worked side by side with Edison in the same vehicles. And we went out and we walked the circuits and we inspected them. We inspected them for tree line contacts too much too close to brush and what have you. And when we discover something it was a phone call away that the individuals that worked for Edison would call and before we would leave the scene of where this troublesome area was there would be tree trimming trucks there fixing it.
So it wasn't like we were needing to write violations. We would just write notice of violation and we would do that together hand in hand and it was just to document the areas that we actually worked on. And so having I retired in 'five and I've lived in Simi Valley all my life. I've never seen the need for PSPS in this extreme manner that's being used now. And that I can only attribute to the SCE and the fire department, local fire department, Ventura County Fire worked together, put teams together and went out and surveyed those lines and made the corrections needed.
And so it was a very, very strong prevention program rather than just throw a switch shut the power off. I do have a couple of questions and I'll try being very brief. We're told that there's going to be many more insulated lines which are very good, but we want to know where those lines are being insulated, where the conductors are being switched to the insulated conductors. Because in our urban city that's of no value because of the insulated conductors being put in where we have a real quick reaction to any problems is not helpful to not only the citizens, but it's also not helping SCE either. So we would like to verify that the insulated lines are going in where it will protect the system in the wildland areas, which is exactly what they've been trying to accomplish.
And so we want to see how that's coming along and what rate of replacement it will be. And I think that's it for at this time I can I think I share with the others the same problems? Obviously, we're quite a bit different because we don't live in the beautiful wildland areas of California like so many do. But here in Simi Valley we just we've been taking a real beating from the PSPS events and would like to see some type of relief.
Speaker 21
So thank you Thank you, Mayor. I think Mayor Crowder is on the line now, so we could go back to him, then we'll go to Mr. Hagobian next. But first, Mayor Crowder, are you on the line? Okay.
Seems like we may still be having some technical. So let's go to Mr. Hagobian. Mr. Hagobian?
Speaker 34
Thank you, Stephanie. Good afternoon, President, Batcher and Commissioners. Matisse Hagobian, Intergovernmental Relations with the City of Santa Clarita. I'd like to first just thank the commission and staff for holding this very important workshop today and for the increased attention on this matter these past few months. Santa Clarita is the third most populous city in Los Angeles County and is home to approximately 225,000 residents.
We are located in Northern Los Angeles County between the Northern and Southern sections of the Angeles National Forest and directly West of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. In addition to those living in the city, there are approximately 70,000 residents in adjacent unincorporated areas of the San Frito Valley. Many of those living and working in the San Frito Valley have experienced several PSPS events, sometimes even during evacuation orders due to the threat of active wildfires. Our disruptions have become a more frequent burden as the use of PSPS events have become year round in Santa Clarita. An even greater concern has been the de energization events during evacuation orders, which has placed many residents in severe danger as lack of electricity has resulted in significant barriers to access to Internet, cellular and landline service to stay up to date with evacuation orders and wildfire conditions.
In 2019 alone, Santa Clarita experienced approximately seven days of CSPS events with the de energization of more than seven circuits in the city. On one given day in October 2019, over 10,500 households in the city experienced the power disruption due to a PSPS event with an estimated average duration of just over twenty four hours. We are still waiting on aggregate data for last year. However, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2020, over 25,000 households and businesses experienced power loss during a PSTS event that lasted over twenty four consecutive hours. We have been in constant discussions with representatives of Southern California Edison, which we are very appreciative of on their plans to harden their grid and reduce the frequency of PSCS events.
So our interest now is to ensure that Edison follows through on their promise to ratepayers in the Santa Clarita Valley and implements immediate grid hardening this year. And with that being said, in our most recent meeting with representatives of Southern California Edison, they actually presented, an immediate grid hardening plan to our mayor and mayor pro tem just last week. In that presentation, we were encouraged to see that they've identified nine circuits that have been hit the hardest in the last three years, essentially defined as experiencing four or more PSPS events during that time frame with plans to harden all nine circuits by September. So our focus now is really to hold them to that, to continue to provide updates to our residents and to our businesses here in the city and the surrounding valley, to ensure that, those hardening, plans are implemented, in a timely manner before, we experience Santa Ana winds come 2021. With that, again, I just want to express our appreciation for your attention on this matter and we look forward to the discussion today.
Thank you.
Speaker 9
Hello. California Public Utilities Commissioners, IRU representatives, fellow panelists and members of the public. My name is Joshua Saxon. I'm a tribal member, previous tribal council member and currently serving my tribal government and community as the Executive Director of the Cuttive Tribe. The Cuttive Tribe provides tribal government oversight and services in three rural communities within our ancestral lands: Orleans, which is in Far Northeastern Humboldt County Happy Camp, which is in Western Siskiyou County and Mireka in Central Siskiyou County.
Our Siskiyou County communities' IOU is Pacific Core. Our Humboldt County communities' IOU is Pacific Gas and Electric. How these IOUs have responded to the wind related fire events over the past several years are vastly different. PG and E took on the challenge of PSBS by treating the Cuddic tribe and all California tribes with the same level of respect and inclusion as cities, counties and state agencies. We were invited, briefed and debriefed with the same information that other agencies were receiving in real time.
I can't thank enough the ongoing commitment and availability of the PG and E team, especially Reno Franklin, private liaison, who has gone above and beyond to ensure the Kaduk tribe is at the table while decisions are being made that affect our communities and the government operations that those communities rely upon. Unfortunately, this has not been the case with Pacific Corps. On 09/08/2020, the Slater fire completely devastated the community of Happy Camp, where the Cuttick tribe's headquarters is located. The fire destroyed over 200 homes, including approximately 44 tribally affiliated homes. The fire burned so fast and intensely, the majority of families were only able to escape with their lives.
Fortunately, the Kutuk tribe was able to utilize COVID-nineteen CARES funding to provide emergency shelter to over 100 families during this ongoing disaster recovery. Where was Pacific Corps before the fire devastated Happy Camp? And more importantly, where were they right after the community of Happy Camp was left burned and helpless? In the wake of this disaster, it has become very evident Pacific Corps must fundamentally change the way they do business in the Mid Klamath region. PG and E has prioritized tribal governments as partners in the PSPS system, beginning with notifications and ending with after action reviews.
We expect and demand the same kind of partnership with Pacific Corp moving forward. I would like to see a firm commitment on the part of Pacific Corp today to establish formal lines of communications in line with those we have with PG and E so that our tribe can bring a positive report back to the CPUC and say this is how things have changed for the better. Our expectation is that Pacific Corvo will be reaching out to PG and E and the Cuttube Drive soon to set up similar communication structures as PG and E has that will enhance public safety and ensure a much needed partnership is being cultivated with an IOU that maintains services in our sovereign territory. My contact information is jsaxoncuttig dot us. My phone number (530) 493-1600 extension 2037.
Thank you.
Speaker 15
Good afternoon. Again, my name is Bill York. I'm the President and CEO of 201 San Diego Imperial County. Thank you for having me today representing at least in San Diego some of our community based organization and the role of two zero one. So I thank you to commissioners and the Public Utility Commission for hosting us.
It's two eleven, we're thankful to the commission because you actually gave two eleven in San Diego approved Infoline of San Diego in 2004, the dialing code. And we've been at 211 since 2005 when we started and launched and took our first call. A little bit about us is I don't do any presentation where I do I realize that although we've been mentioned several times today and we're part of on a lot of people's tongues with different things, whether it's COVID or social services, a lot of people don't know what two eleven is and where it came from. So little preface to that. Two eleven came on the scene in 2000 after the FCC approved the dialing code.
And in California, that started spreading quickly after 2,000, us receiving the dialing code in 2005. So we've had about sixteen years of doing information and referral. At the core of what we do, we connect to community resources, individuals, citizens to information around community based organizations, government benefit programs and disaster. It was quickly after nineeleven that the FCC and others, the Brookings Institute realized that there were over 200 numbers set up in New York and DC that was the exact quote was haphazard and disorganized for 800 numbers to find information around post nineeleven, so in Connecticut, DC and New York. And so there was a lot of reports and actually research done that 211 could be used in a disaster disaster support to really pull off those calls off 800 numbers and easy to remember dialing codes, but also in disaster to the non emergency life threatening.
And so we played that role since 2006. In 2006, San Diego County saw the opportunity to leverage two eleven that was again taking off here and growing in size and scale to be able to offer services, but also to look at the fire threats that here in the wildfire. And in 2007, we were first tested. So we have a relationship directly with San Diego County as early as, again, 2006, tested in 2007. By the way, that's when I started here as a volunteer at 02:11 and trial by fire.
I came in the second day and I've been here ever since. So it's interesting that I'm speaking to you now about PSPS when our disaster resume and the way that we used in San Diego is a little bit different than some of the other two in-1s that were completely embedded in our San Diego County infrastructure, Office of Emergency Services and all being a nonprofit, which is one of the requirements of a two eleven is it's run by a nonprofit. And so being embedded in our Office of Emergency Services, having relationships and information providing from not only our IOU, the SDG and E, but our county, Cal Fire and other state entities that we have that valid up to date vetted information. So every day, we're providing social service referrals to community based organizations, working with 1,200 partners and 6,000 resources. And then during fire disaster, PSPS, COVID, we're launching to a whole another realm of possibilities.
And I think that's what we've done here around energy assistance. Again, a partnership that goes back with SDG and E for sixteen years, again, connecting our citizens to support mechanisms around the California air rates for energy screening and rolling. We're actually on the back of the bill, an SDG and E bill here in San Diego that to know when to call for information around the bill or information around customer service or relaying back to SDG and E. So we're embedded in sort of the infrastructure of our utility assistance provider. And with that, we became better understanding of TheraCare, again, all of the fire related things you can imagine.
And each time we get launched, we learn more. Our disaster resume is extensive and our partnerships to both the county as well as SDG E are strong. So which leads us to our partnership around PSPS. In the last few years, as PSPS has rolled out, we realized speaking to millions of people over the years around what power shutoffs look like, what fire safety looks like, what fires and all of the things that happened in wildfire and that mitigation. And so we have been delivering that type of service to our clients for a long time, our citizens.
So PSPS was really the next partnership. So from a community based organization, working with community based organizations, government IOUs, like SDG and E, we've been able to deliver an additional service in looking at protocols and process for our power deactivation, again, having a voice right to our wildfire mitigation council, and we serve our entire region. So we've been able to work with SDG and E and our IOU to build a process with our CBOs, again, with that linchpin to a lot of our community based organizations. We're proud of the partnership over the last year that we formed in our PSPS program. Again, working with our other community based organizations like Jewish Family Services, FACT, Salvation Army, we've been able to do some really impactful things.
In this last fire season, in these last PSPS times, we've actually had eight activations. And we have incredible results of the impact and what that looks like. And I'm happy to share with you any questions as we talk more about PSBS and what we've learned in the last few years. Thank you.
Speaker 35
Okay, perfect. Sorry about that. Supervisor Teeter kind of took all of my thunder here. So I'll still try to make some points here. We're definitely not unique in the PSPS situation as anybody else who's spoken.
Are a little bit unique as the fire that came through here, the Camp Fire destroyed 95% of our entire town. We're making good progress in rebuilding. PG and E is undergrounding our entire town, which we're extremely grateful for. We'll be a much safer community for that. We went from a town of 27,000 people overnight to a town of 3,000 people.
Right now we sit at 5,000 to 6,000 in population. Like everybody else, the PSPSs affect our businesses, our medical need residents, our regular residents. The differences are especially our businesses are struggling to start with the loss in population COVID, our restaurants, which we only have a few are just hanging on by a thread. Every time a PSPS comes around, they're throwing out a ton of food because they're without food for or without power for two or three days. We're having residents that are on the fence, do we come back and live like a third world country or do we go somewhere else?
It's really tough for us. Our schools, our kids are having a heck of a time. Again, COVID is impacting the in person learning. And then when we have a PSPS, a good part of us lose our Internet, our cell service, so our kids are falling further and further behind. One of the biggest struggles was last year during the Bear Fire, we faced two town evacuation warnings.
While those were under a PSPS event for us, so again a good part of our residents had no Internet. So there was problems relaying information from the fire anyway. I was literally up all night fielding phone calls from people that had the ability to get out. Is just been a real struggle and it is affecting our rebuild. And I guess what we need to really see is I'm hoping that we can get isolated off of the normal grid as we underground because I just don't see us being able to wait four years until this project is complete to have these PSPSs go away and like Supervisor Teeter had said, then you've got a judge that wants to double the number of them.
I mean, we're scraping and scrapping and trying to come back, but we need some help in this. So anyway, you very much for listening.
Speaker 21
And thank you. Well, time is going much faster than I anticipated. So what I think I'll jump to is letting you guys have some time, new panelists, to ask some questions directly at the IOUs. Unlike the last panel, AFN, where things were sort of statewide, we sort of have a bit of a regional focus. So, what I'd like to do is maybe by IOU, open it up to some questions.
And we went north to south before, so maybe we'll reverse it and go sort of southern up. If we have a first question or so for San Diego Gas and Electric, I'd like to throw that out and then we'll move to Edison. Any questions that any of the panelists have for San Diego Gas and Electric? Okay. And next year.
Speaker 15
Stephanie, I think I'm the only San Diegan on the call, right? It seems So to me because you know, which I'm glad happy to represent. So I don't have any, but I do think my point I want to make is I don't have any direct questions for STG and E because we're really embedded in the PSPS process. So I and I think that's part of the point of what my talking today was talking about what our process has changed and what we've seen over the years here being the information arm and the information arm for our county having that dialing code. But we part of our PSPS partnership is really about about that communication.
So I mean, I get asked what the secret sauce is in San Diego, and it really is because we have direct line and ongoing communication. So anything that we have as our community based organization and and two eleven providing that service for PCPSPS of navigating very complex needs in partnership is that we get we have a two week two way collaboration and communication constantly. And in PSVS launch, we are it is feverishly communicating right down to case by case basis. So I don't have any but I wanted to make sure I represented San Diego for what it looks like for us that actually are on the side of the community and community based organizations once a PSPS happens. So thanks.
Speaker 21
That's really helpful. And it sounds like it's a good role model for the rest of the state in terms of the collaboration. So thank you. Well, I know the next area, Southern California Edison, I know we definitely will have some questions coming from our panelists. So I'll open it up for those in other parts of Southern California Edison territory.
Speaker 33
My first question is I'm going back several years and we worked very closely with Edison and when I was with the fire department and all indications are they no longer do preventative inspections of the conductors that run through the wildland areas and I'm wondering why that isn't the case because it seemed to be a very successful program when I was doing it back in the early 2000s and we had a very close relationship with the folks from Edison. And if we look at the historic history of fires I think you would see that those were very successful inspections in preventing fires. So that's a question I have is are you reaching out, are you trying to or do you meet with the local fire authorities and actually go out and inspect?
Speaker 36
Hi, Stephanie. This is Larry Chung. I just want to take a quick moment to introduce myself on behalf of Edison. So I serve as Vice President of Local Public Affairs. And I believe it's my first time in front of this body.
So I just want to quickly introduce myself and get to Mayor Mashburn's question. First of all, I want to mention that I think many of the questions that we've heard throughout the day and certainly Mayor Mashburn your question, it can certainly boil down to communication. And we recognize kind of the hardships and impacts that PSPS has had, particularly in 2020. And so, we are really committed to improving our communication with our local governments and tribal partners as well. But to answer your question specifically, Mayor Mashburn, and by the way, pleased to be introduced to you.
We do in fact, work with our fire agencies, specifically Ventura County Fire. And we do in fact conduct enhanced overhead inspections of our infrastructure. And while it may not be kind of, I think the partnership that you're talking about, I do think we have an ability to communicate that better to you and to the city. And we certainly comply with all of the enhanced mitigations for wildfire risks. And we regularly inspect our lines.
Project Santa Ana Ventura County is a perfect example of that. And certainly, so if that's not something that we are communicating regularly to you, certainly committed to making sure that communication is better.
Speaker 33
Yes. No, I appreciate that. And I know there's two sides to this. There's the fire department side and then of course there's the SCE side and both sides have to reach out to each other. I just know that back in the early 2000s it certainly seemed to be a very successful program and I would like to see it brought back or see if it maybe it is being done and we're just not aware of it.
Now our area is a little different in that I think the circuits that are affecting our city only go into a wildland area to a very small degree. So it's not a big task like it may be in some of the other counties.
Speaker 36
Yes, I do know that our fire management officers are quite closely connected to the fire agencies. So I promise you I'm taking copious notes and I can make sure that we are communicating a little bit better with you in the future on that.
Speaker 33
Appreciate. And then second question, can we have a list of the circuits including location of transmission lines that have been hardened or upgraded to the insulated lines. So we can kind of take a look and see because we know the circuits that come into our city and we know if they're coming out of a wild land area and that's why they're being shut off but it has a tremendous effect on our city. And we would like to keep track of it so we can relay that information to the constituency letting them know the progress that's being made. And there has been great progress by the way and I commend SCE for that.
They've reduced the number of DSPS events and they've also reduced the number of people that it will impact. But we would like to be in a position to have that information so we can share it with our very interested constituency.
Speaker 36
Mayor Mashburn, first, I actually would like to say thank you. President Batcher, one of your comments this morning about this panel sort of being an opportunity to listen and gain feedback. I think that's something that we take very seriously. And so we appreciate the comments. And Mayor Mashburn, if I could just use this opportunity to highlight your question about receiving sort of more information, more data.
I think it's a really perfect example of how we are seeking to improve, particularly in PSPS communications. You mentioned the traffic signals in Simi Valley, that was sort of a direct circumstance of communication between Edison and your city. And so, we're really happy to be able to mitigate some of the PSPS impacts on the traffic signals to make your system more resilient there. But again, that comes because of your communication. And so thank you for those comments.
We will continue to do that. So the answer to your question is yes. And I believe it was just last week we had a meeting with the community of Simi Valley. So we will get that information to you. I believe we shared that with staff.
We'll certainly get that to you again. But again, wanted to just highlight the appreciation for the collaboration and the feedback is welcome and we're going to strive to do better and do more. So thank you.
Speaker 33
Yes. Thank you. There is a noticeable change and I think it'll show up as we have these new events that new PSPS events and it won't be as impactful on us that's for sure. That's all the questions I have. Thank you very much.
Speaker 21
Thank you. And to Santa Clarita, did you have any questions either for Edison or for any of the IRU panelists, I guess?
Speaker 34
Yes. Thanks, Stephanie. This is Misty from San Clarita. Before I deliver my question, I did want to just say on Miriam Ashburn's point, we also have seen improvements made by Southern California Edison, specifically in regard to segmentation on during a PSPS event that significantly reduced the impact of PSPS events that we've experienced in our city. And that's been something that we've continued to communicate to representatives, our regional representatives at Edison as well.
So any programs or efforts to reduce impacts, live segmentation has definitely been something that we've encouraged. In addition to that, communication has, definitely improved, not only to city officials, both our city council and city staff, but in addition to that, also ratepayers within the community as well. I know Edison hosted a, community town hall for specifically at San Creative Valley last week in addition to a meeting that they had with, myself and our mayor and mayor pro tem providing those updates. So we definitely appreciate the increased communication and the efforts that Edison has made recently just provide updates on their plans moving forward. But with that said, given the expedited and immediate plans in regard to grid hardening within Santa Clarita, my question is what are Edison's plans on providing updates on progress these next six months in grid hardening to the community?
Speaker 36
Thank you. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned earlier, I think communication is absolutely key to all of this. We've heard the feedback from elected officials from our community, from this body here as well. I believe to date we've had two meetings, as you mentioned, in the Santa Clarita Valley, as well as in Simi Valley.
We have at least 10 more meetings community scheduled for the rest of the year to go specifically over grid hardening measures. I think one of the pieces of feedback that we received that was quite helpful to us was that there needs to be sort of an increase in customer community communications and transparency. And so we are striving to ensure that when we have these meetings, the decision making process, improving communications and notifications. And then actually on the back end, enhancing post event reporting is also something that we're trying to focus on. And so, as I think we had some staff members from the PAC attend last week, making sure that we're communicating things like in the Santa Clarita Valley, for example, assuming similar conditions as 2020, we expect 68% reduction actually, I'm sorry, an 81% reduction in customer average time due to PSPS across the frequently impacted circuits, communicating to the city what circuits are impacted, what the mitigation measures are going to be, and just really just education about when impacts are going to occur, and then also cleaning up the notifications as well.
So those are all specifics around grid hardening that we want to continue to educate the community on. And as I mentioned, at least planning on having 10 more this year. Also, I want to take a moment, I didn't recognize my team members on the call. We do have Michael Gwen, who is our local public affairs lead for PSPS, as well as Amy Olson, who is our tribal engagement lead. Certainly, please feel free to jump in if I've missed anything or if you have follow-up questions.
Speaker 21
We do have one additional question that Santa Clarita had on 2020 PSPS data including households and businesses impacted by a PSPS event and the number of total hours and residents or businesses owners have experienced in a PSPS event, apparently that data had been requested and they have not received it?
Speaker 34
Yeah. And let me this is Naseez again for Sanfrey. Let me add to that. We have, this has been brought up, several different times. And, my understanding right now is, our regional representatives at Edison are working on aggregating that data for us.
So that's the update there. We're going to hang tight right now, but that is definitely information that we'd like to see sooner than later as we continue to strategize and try provide support to our residents and our businesses and with the best effort moving forward. Thank you.
Speaker 36
And I've taken note of that just now happy to follow-up with you afterwards to make sure we're getting you that data.
Speaker 21
Excellent. Are there any other questions for Edison directly? Okay. I've noted here that we have several tribal leads on the line. And so I'm just wondering if Mr.
Saxon has any specific questions for either the tribal lead or Pacific Corp.
Speaker 9
Yes, pretty simple. Is there anyone from Pacific Corp on this call? Yes.
Speaker 37
I'm Todd Andres. I'm right here. And I heard your contact information. I'm looking forward to reaching out to you and setting up a meeting. I've had the joy of working with Scott Steinberg on the on our Wildpower Council and talking to him about resiliency measures programs that we have.
I And look forward to working with you also.
Speaker 37
Todd Andress. And I'll be in Wairiqa actually tomorrow and reach I out to you at that time, let's say, at that time too.
Speaker 37
I'm the Regional Business Manager. So I represent the Sythecuh County, Modoc County, small parts of Shasta County and then some areas up in Oregon also.
Speaker 37
I am not aware of that at this time, but there are senior executives on the call today too listening and it's something that we'll definitely bring it up to them.
Speaker 34
And Director Saxon, my name is Justin Fukartek. I'm the Director of Emergency Management for Pacific Corp. I've been with the company for all but a month. I apologize that I'm not in a position to speak on past experiences. But that being said, I was brought in to address gaps and unmet needs, particularly regarding our emergency preparedness and response initiatives.
So my highest priority coming in is to address and improve our PSPS operations in regards to how we can better serve our local partners and communities like yours during the planning and execution of such an event. I also look forward to working with you in your community in the future.
Speaker 9
That. It's not just me, right? I mean, there are we as the tribe, we have multiple departments, multiple directors that also are impacted by PSPS. And so it's very important that as information sharing happens and that partnership is built, that I also am able to connect you with our regional folks in Happaquempa, Wairika, that will be impacted and that will need to be part of that communication stream. So it's very important that we we're behind the eight ball, and we need to move forward fairly quickly, especially with the fire season approaching and wind events.
It's already I can look outside, I can see the wind blowing. It's not too bad, but the sooner, the better. Thank you.
Speaker 7
Thank you. Just to follow-up, I was just going to ask Justin or Todd if they could follow-up with us because it sounds like from what Josh is saying that there's been no lines of communication between PacifiCorp and the Karuk and he doesn't doesn't he has no idea what your positions are, which is disturbing.
Speaker 7
would be I think we'd be interested to learn what types of communication have specific or engaged in the past. I don't know if it was Justin or Todd who said you're only there a month, so may not be you may not have the history, but we'd certainly be interested in hearing more of that history.
Speaker 37
Yes. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit about this. So I was brought in to the territory after a well deserved retirement in March 2020 and that's when I started to take on the area of Siskiyou County and Modoc County. And earlier today we talked about challenges. I think COVID has created some challenges of establishing strong lines of communication And but recently, I have been able to find some contacts with the Peruvian tribe and started to begin to build on that and I'm looking forward to build that even stronger.
Speaker 21
Thank you. Okay. Why don't we turn to PG and E and if there's any questions of PG and E coming from Northern California. And supervisor Hopkins or Teeter or Meyer Prada?
Speaker 31
the opening statement is we've seen improvements like with that jail PG and E rerouted wires, pre notification has improved to in some cases down to two day notification. We've had a micro grid created in Magalia and that is like connecting a grocery store, gas station, a Rite Aid, a fire station, a Sheriff substation, a cell tower and a community water provider. And I've heard there's plans to connect to the new underground area in Magalia. And I think question wise for PG and E, our jail has permanent generators that were only designed to operate for short periods. We're renting other generators and switch back and forth.
As you could imagine with having so many disasters in our County our budget is challenged and financial assistance to fix a more permanent generator solution would be welcomed. So I guess that's question number one. With microgrids, their current practice is to use diesel generators and other solutions would be nice to have instead of the diesel. Emergency notification, I don't know what plan they have to work with the county on proving that. Apologies, I'm looking at my notes.
We've asked for as a county, we've asked for certain things don't get shut down, especially critical infrastructure. Typically PG and E hasn't addressed that. I'm hoping they could answer if that's going to improve. Also PG and E when they place community resource centers they haven't checked with the county. I'd like to see if they're going to do that in the future.
And then is there a plan for additional micro grids in rural counties? I don't know if that plan maybe I'm just not aware of it. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Thanks, Stephanie. Good afternoon, Supervisor Teeter. Thanks for the questions. I got six. I think I missed the third one, so I might need you to repeat that.
The first is really on the jail. And as you highlighted, that was a big focus for us given the priority that was provided by the community and the concerns about that in 2019. And so we were able to rewire that so that it is largely out of scope for PSPS events unless there is a very significant transmission event there. So I know we've provided some backup generation in 2019 and would be happy to continue conversations offline about what additional support might be possible for a specific backup generation there. Generally, we are in the business of supporting those whose generators fail as opposed to providing backup generating across all of the many facilities across the service territory, we certainly can look at individual issues.
For us in terms of non diesel solutions, so we are looking to contract for the cleanest diesel available this year and we're finding a fair bit of that in the marketplace based on some early soliciting that we've been doing that we're getting close to signing some contracts on for this year. We are also looking to do a pilot this year. We'll need help from other energy service providers to help us with what are clean technologies that might work. And so we are launching a pilot this year. That pilot will be in Lake County that we'll be looking at for what sort of technologies might be out there.
And so hopefully we can learn from that and from what the energy services community can provide in that space. In terms of critical facilities, we're happy to sit down with you and obviously emergency managers in Butte County with our local folks to talk that through. I've been there for a couple of those meetings and it is not always possible to electrically isolate a critical facility, but we have gone through a pretty rigorous validation process with the emergency management team to make sure that we have identified all the critical facilities in Butte County. Identifying them is different than being able to necessarily exclude them. We're very pleased to be able to work with your folks to obviously get the jail off because it was a neighboring circuit that is not served by a transmission line that goes through some of the high fire threat areas.
And so that was an opportunity to move a critical facility onto another circuit that is not impacted by PSPS. So we are happy to continue to identify specific critical facilities and see if there are similar solutions available. In terms of community resource centers, we have worked with again your emergency managers to try to develop those sites. We know that we struggled with developing a good indoor facility in the town of Paradise this year. That was a challenge.
Mayor Crowder brought that up with me when I was there for the community meeting in November, and we are committed to getting the facility across the finish line this year. We're simply challenging with some of the ADA considerations to find a facility that met the requirements to allow access for all. So that was a bit of a challenge and we're committed to whatever investments are needed to help upgrade a facility to make sure that we can get that in place for this year. You called out the microgrid in Magalia. We're also looking at something similar in the town of Paradise.
Obviously, if we connect that downtown core there with some of the facilities that the already undergrounded facilities there. There's a small amount of overhead wire that we're going to be putting underground in advance of fire season and that will allow us to keep a good chunk of the at least the commercial district energized there as well. And certainly that's one area that we would look at for being able to provide backup generation as the transmission into there is potentially impacted. So I'm happy to meet with you offline and continue to have these conversations. I know members of our team continue to have that conversation with different folks locally and we're happy to bring you into that conversation closer so that we can share do a better job of sharing some of the specific measures that we're taking.
When it comes to microgrids generally, we are looking to install very similar to what you described in Megalia, those kinds that can provide some of those critical facilities. And at this time we don't have plans for any additional ones in Butte County but we do have a longer term five year plan looking at around 30 of these across our service territory in these various sort of small developed downtown cores of different small towns where we can keep some semblance of normality going during a PSPS event. Thank you for the questions.
Speaker 31
You're welcome Mr. Johnson. Thanks for the response. One addition, food for thought on that Megalia microgrid, our Fire Safety Council has been really trying hard to get like a biomass plant that could power that grid. Anything that PG and E can do to help reduce hazard fuels and turn it into power for microgrids would be appreciative.
I know you've had conversations or PG and E has, but others on this webinar may not have ever heard of that kind of work, so thanks.
Speaker 35
Hi. I have a question when first off, want to thank PG and E. We've always had a great line of communication whenever anybody from the town has needed something. The team has been great and transparent. And we may not always like the answer, but at least we got the answer, I've got to thank you for that.
When we had our community meeting in November, one of the things that we had said because all of a good part of the data for turning off our power was predicated on wins through the Jarbo gap. Well, that doesn't isn't necessarily reflective to Paradise. So you had talked about putting in some more monitoring stations in Paradise. So I was wondering if you had any kind of update on that.
Speaker 15
Yes. And just for the general awareness of this group, I'll elaborate on that situation slightly. So the region at which we're looking at de energization of PG and E is built off of an old Cal Fire designation called the Fire Index Area. And the Fire Index Area that encompasses the town of Paradise also goes down into the Jarbo Gap, which is notoriously windy area. And so you can make decisions be making decisions based on that level of granularity of weather that might be very windy in one area and less windy so in the town of Paradise.
Speaker 15
there, Crowder. We there are some electrical challenges with that. It's not as simple as we were discussing it there in terms of the further research to look at our ability to both isolate that weather there, but then also look at how that weather footprint lays over with the actual electrical systems and the sources into the town of Paradise. It starts getting a little bit complicated, but I would be happy to commit to following up with you to help you understand what we can do better there. We think there's a little bit of an opportunity, but it is going to be challenging to completely disaggregate that windiness given where the electrical lines actually flow through the local community.
Speaker 21
Excellent. I'd actually want to go back. I got the microgrid and the community versus center question, just asked if PG and E was a good one, and I was wondering if we could ask Edison that same question.
Speaker 36
Thanks, Stephanie. I'm going to tag in my colleague, Michael, to answer the microgrid question.
Speaker 38
This is Michael Winn. Thanks Larry. Regarding microgrids, I mean we are looking at microgrids potentially as pilots. We do have one looking at one in Simi Valley that we're looking to do for a specific area there hopefully using clean energy as well and hope that's to be operational in 2022 prior to the peak wildfire season. But we are also working to share more information about helping our local and tribal governments on microgrid opportunities and building their resiliency.
We actually do have a couple, we do have workshops coming up April and invited our local and tribal governments to attend those, but we will be sharing more information about microgrids and definitely encourage them to attend, so to hear more about that information.
Speaker 21
And the other question was about community resource centers and working with local officials and community.
Speaker 38
Oh, sorry. Didn't hear that last question. Sorry. What was that specifically?
Speaker 21
Well, previously they were talking about working with the local government on community resource centers and communication and so just wanted to ask you guys about that. That's been an issue in the past.
Speaker 38
Sorry about that. Yes, definitely. Yes, we definitely are working closely with our local and tribal governments to identify community resource or have we have worked with them definitely last year to identify community resource centers and we'll continue to do so this year as we engage our local and tribal governments. I know we've been we had our tribal workshop last week and did encourage our tribal governments to sign up. We have about 56, I believe, community resource centers as of last year and that's been a tremendous increase from the previous year.
So we'll continue to work on identifying or working with our local governments to identifying community resource centers to support customers in those areas.
Speaker 15
I one question I could answer. I know supervisor Hopkins had to jump off, but she had concerns about the CRC deployment in Sonoma County and so I did want to just address that for the benefit of the group. We do have four event ready indoor sites in Sonoma County and nine outdoor sites. So we think we've worked pretty well with emergency management locally to develop a good portfolio of sites. We did have a lot of challenges this year.
We were trying to use all the libraries in the County and there were COVID considerations there that ultimately prevented us from getting across the finish line. So we had to pivot very late in the season away from the libraries when we couldn't get those event ready and we couldn't reach a mutual commitment to prioritize the libraries for CRCs given other considerations in the county, is understandable in the time of COVID. So understand that there may have been some frustration there, but we feel like we have a good portfolio now, but we will follow-up with the supervisor to make sure in particular if there are low income areas that she called out or gaps in that network of CRCs that we address those. I did just want to speak to that even though she's not on. We'll follow-up with her directly.
Thank you.
Speaker 21
Perfect. And I know we're getting short on time, so I wanted to allow the commissioners a couple of questions if they had any. But I also thought maybe right before we go to the commissioners, if each of the panelists want to just identify, is there one thing you would ask the IHOR youth for improvement? What one thing could they do to improve things going forward that would be of help to you, beneficial to your community? Maybe we could just rapid fire go give everybody a chance to answer that one quick question.
And I'll go Mr. York.
Speaker 15
Yes, sure. And I know I don't think City of Gas Electric. One of the things that working community based organizations kind of doing that working with that network of social services that are helping to provide the lift with SDG and E. This is a request again, we've gone through them as well as we're looking at other state entities is we have a fairly sophisticated infrastructure of community resources here. Our Community Information Exchange, which we run is actually a technology created network of clients consenting in to share information around different services they received.
And so there's over 100 organizations that share that data. If you imagine an electronic health record that your systems are managed care, your specialists, your primary care, your pharmacists all connected, We've done that in San Diego. And so and we've seen the benefits of around PSPS and working with SDG and E and the AFN population that we've been able to glean. I think getting more data sharing, understanding the consent that clients allow themselves to because they want to receive services and more coordinated services and information, specifically the AFN population. So I don't think it's just an SDG and E question.
It is around that data share, freeing those up. All within HIPAA, all of those compliance, all compliance, privacy and security that you can imagine, we must follow since we're linked to a lot of health care records that I think that more transparency and again, putting the client's information at the hand of the client that whether it's a customer of the IRU or a client to us, we can do better coordination and navigation, specifically around PSPS and AFN. So from our perspective, that would be a huge lift and we'd be able to proactively work in partnership with all of our of the program that we have here at San Diego.
Speaker 21
Perfect. Mr. Saksman, anything you'd like to note that would be helpful for the tribal communities of any of the IRUs or all of the IRUs? Sure.
Speaker 9
Probably just keeping it simple and in line with my previous comments, PG and E, please continue to engage with your tribal and rural partners as we remain flexible with the SPS and continue to communicate. I would say places where we can continue to improve would be microgrids, ways to look at power generation like solar and battery so that we can make sure that our elder community and our low income communities are able to last through a longer kind of PSPS would be my comment on that. And then for PacifiCorp, I would say invest in this process with tribes and with rural communities. This is extremely important for not just our communities in terms of their safety and public safety, but also tribal governments have a very unique view and local knowledge and skill set to assist you in this kind of communication. So take advantage of it.
Speaker 34
Sure. Yes. Thank you, Stephanie. Honestly, it's very simple. Immediate investments and implementation of grid hardening to the
Speaker 21
Perfect. Wow. I couldn't have said that in more concise. Mirabash Nashburn.
Speaker 33
Yes, thank you. I think what I'd be asking for is very accurate event communications. I think that's been one of the biggest problems and frustrations of our constituency is the information that they're able to obtain from SCE has not been accurate and timely. And I know that's a hard thing to ask for in a specific event, but that's certainly one of the biggest complaints. Other than that, I think a timeline for the hardening of the circuits and so if that was brought to the city staff or the council so we can share the information at least even if it's not a 100% on target but be able to give some estimates of timing and because of the hardening of the circuits is what's going to drop the SPS events that affect everybody.
So that information, better communications between SCE and the city staff and of course during the actual events the communication that's put out to the residents needs to be accurate. And that's I think would clear up a lot of the issues. It's certainly not a fix all but it's a great start.
Speaker 21
Thank you for that. Mayor Crowder, you'd want to note? Okay. Supervisor Teeter And Supervisor Hopkins. Well, those are some closing thoughts.
I'd like to turn it over to see if any of the commissioners have anything they'd like to ask any of the panelists or the IOUs.
Speaker 2
Yeah, Stephanie, I have a quick question, if I may go first. This is all of the IOUs. Last year at this time we were already planning to have tabletop exercise and actual exercises. I think we only heard of one being planned or no one IOU planning exercises for June I believe it was June I may have written that down wrong but the three major I o u's all had exercises last year I think s d g and e's was pretty late frankly but they had them and I think they were very worthwhile. I know there are a lot of work to put on but they're very beneficial and they frankly could save lives.
So I'd like to know if and if you don't have a representative on the line still that can tell us about your planning for exercises if you could please get back to us on that and if they're actual exercises or are there tabletops so I would like to ask that rapid fire of the three IOUs.
Speaker 37
Well, this is Todd from Pacific Power and I can answer that we did have a tabletop exercise on June 3 in Wee, California. It was both attended and virtual. He was able to come in. We also held a virtual meeting to the community on May 27 and we are planning to do both of those things again in 2021.
Speaker 2
Okay. Are they Todd? Are they I'm not talking about virtual meetings or meetings. I'm really talking about an actual exercise tabletop where you have the emergency management and you have tribal governments represented, you have county governments represented, you have your operational people there and you run through it.
Speaker 37
Yes, we had a tabletop exercise and we'd now some chose to call in virtual because of the COVID situations in their own safeties, but we had representation in weed working with the County Emergency Management and so yes.
Speaker 14
And President Badger, this is Jennifer Summers with SDG and E. We do have a tabletop exercise that we'll be holding in June. Final date has not been determined yet but it'll happen in June and we've already met with all of our emergency managers both our local governments and our tribal governments within the last two months to start coordination.
Speaker 15
And this is, Erin Johnson with PG and E. President Batcher, we will be having, as I think Samit discussed this morning, two full scale exercises, scheduled in the South and Central for May and the North in July, and each of which will be preceded by a tabletop, and those will be full scale exercises, will be preceded by a one day tabletop approximately a month prior to that. It may be closer to several weeks before that just to make sure everybody is ready. For the full scale exercise, we are in particular looking at the full scale exercises. They are five days to run an event in real time all through.
That is a we've gotten a lot of feedback. That's a lot of commitment from some of the local partners. And so we are designing that process so that they can participate in pieces of that a little more successfully that are more relevant to a lot of our local partners. And so we're working through the details on that currently.
Speaker 2
Thank you. That's helpful. And those details, you're right, the five days was a big commitment, but the details are important too. And I'm hopeful that PG and E can share how you're going about this with Edison as well as SDG and E. And I don't mean to leave out Pacific Corp because I think we've heard today that you all have some really strong liaisoning that you need to do and planning that you need to do particularly with the tribes, but I daresay probably with the that are in your service area as well.
I just want to underscore that. I think you need to step it up. And I hope you've learned some things from this conversation from your the other IOUs and some of the lessons learned that they have incorporated into their new plans for both last year 2020 as well as in 2021. Okay, Stephanie, I'll turn it over to my
Speaker 38
Fausto Calvary Edison, just also wanted to chime in on our exercise as well. So we are planning ours for April and definitely we'll be inviting our public safety partners and encouraging them to participate as well as emergency management officials.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I appreciate that. Sorry that I skipped over. Appreciate that. Very
Speaker 21
Thank you, Stephanie. Well, thank you, President Thatcher. Any of the other commissioners, do you have any questions for the IRUs or our panelists?
Speaker 5
I can go. This is Commissioner Guzmana Service. I just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtfulness here. One of the maybe common threads that came through was this question of transparency on progress of hardening work. And the question to the utilities is, you know, how to do that in a way that's continuous?
And what is that forum? And potentially, is it the portal itself where you can incorporate, something understandable for the local leadership and the public even, potentially even mapping of the progress on hardening? What is the what's the best vehicle for that? I know some of you spoke individually about certain communities and some of the ambitious goals that will benefit some of them. But it sounds like this is obviously something that will be needed continuously.
So is that the best venue or vehicle for that communication? Or do you have other thoughts? But it seems like the portal will be the most obvious vehicle to use to keep that information updated.
Speaker 14
And commissioner Guzman Aceves, this is Jennifer Summers with SDG and E. The portal that you're discussing would be a great resource, and my understanding is that that portal is being created as part of the micro grid OIR with resiliency for our local and tribal government. Another resource that we found to be incredibly effective is quarterly meetings. We have a number of meetings to discuss all the projects that impact our local jurisdictions. So for example, we would meet with the county of San Diego, different levels within the county, whether it's public works, planning department, and we bring our project managers to those meetings and have those discussions.
I mean, I will go out and brief our tribal leaders on projects that are directly impacting and near the reservations as well. So that's been a really effective tool, to be layered I think on top of that portal because the portal can provide the information and then those quarterly meetings and regular meetings can explain it and answer questions.
Speaker 5
Jennifer, do you currently include the progress on hardening as either part of your meetings or in the portal itself?
Speaker 14
I don't know about the portal itself, what's been scoped out within that, but we do discuss that in our quarterly meetings and when we meet with our governments.
Speaker 5
And maybe that's something that's really great. I wonder if that's replicable for the other utilities that have a larger footprint. I I certainly think that's a great model to meet quarterly with the local government.
Speaker 36
Commissioner, this is Larry Chung for Southern California Edison. I did want to share that we also, certainly during our individual meetings with our cities and counties and our direct engagement, we share our grid hardening information with them. And we also are looking at sort of meeting our customers where they are in terms of information sharing. And so we've seen a lot of engagement online. We're looking at how do we, can we put that on our website so that folks can access that information in real time?
We also share it online currently with our counties. So we also have it in our community meetings. We're sharing that data actively with them. As I mentioned, we have at least 10 more scheduled for the rest of the year. We've also met with 12 out of 13 of our OAS County offices.
And so we are sharing that information in real time and we'll continue to do that. But again, in terms of, I think your question was specifically something new that we could do. We are looking at posting that information on our website so that the public can view that. And I think to Mayor Mashburn's point earlier, having that type of data, having that information, I think would better serve everybody. That's what we're looking at currently at Edison.
Speaker 2
Mary, this is Maribel. Just a follow-up, if I may, on the answer. I it it does concern me you have already been meeting with the counties and some of the cities, where mayor Mashburn and, the manager assistant manager Egobein both did not realize or did not know what circuits you had hardened and you know we've heard that there are nine circuits that have been identified and four more are the hardest hit that you're going to go in and harden before this year's wildfire season. That would be very important information to start underscoring with with folks so they can get it out as the mayor said and the city manager said so then get it out to their constituents. Very important, obviously, for Simi Valley because of them being an urban area where people have a great misunderstanding as to why their power is going off when there's no fire even near them.
So and anyway, I just underscored that.
Speaker 36
Absolutely. Appreciate the feedback. Thank you very much, President Betcher.
Speaker 37
You bet. I apologize. I would just like to add, we do have quarterly meetings also and with governmental officials invited. And we this past meeting we had in March we went through details of the hardening we're doing in our system.
Speaker 5
And sorry Mr. Andres, so when you say you have quarterly meetings with local governments, obviously, we've learned today that doesn't include tribal government.
Speaker 5
Okay. So you have quarterly meetings with a group of governments or individuals?
Speaker 37
Supervisors with Supervisors with city manager, also university, colleges, large industrial users, a wide variety of individuals. And we discussed the hardening and to make sure that these information gets out to the public also. We invite the Assistant Fire Council heir to come to the meeting also.
Speaker 5
And I should remember this, but are you also required to have established a portal or is that just the large IRUs?
Speaker 5
Neither one of them. No, it's okay. All right. Well, it seems to be a useful tool or maybe you can consider it if it's not required. Okay.
So Pete, do need
Speaker 37
we do have I should correct myself. We do have information on our website, which is dedicated to PSPS. And we do have a Wildfire Advisory Board
Speaker 15
of similar answers to what you're hearing from the other IOUs. We sort of do a pre wildfire season kickoff meeting with a large group of stakeholders like Mr. Anders was describing and we usually do that in the spring. That's what Samit mentioned this morning that we're getting ready to launch and we're just now starting to schedule those for the month of April. So we'll be doing that over a several month period and we do that on a county jurisdiction but it involves local, tribal and county government.
We do it on a county geographic area. That's where we invite folks in to hear about local work that's planned, provide transparency on that. As part of our wildfire mitigation plan, we and I think some of the requirements from the commission, we do provide quarterly updates on the progress of that to all of our customers as well as obviously local officials. The portal is one place we can do that. I think for the general public, we share more technical information in the portal with County Emergency Management in particular.
We
Speaker 15
been looking at whether we would create some sort of online tool that can help customers with that visualization process that may work a little bit better for the general public that are both about PSPS likelihood and where work is being done on our system specifically on specific circuits. So we're in the process of rolling out that tool this year with you know some of the specific details will probably come next as we integrate more and more into that tool and we get customer feedback on what works for them.
Speaker 5
Thank you. It's a really good comment that many of our local government, tribal government leadership is calling on all of us that we need to help the public understand where we are in the progress. And I think what I'm hearing anyway is some of these macro numbers aren't doing it. They want to know where their individual circuits are in line and how it impacts their future PSPS likelihood. So I think that's the challenge in the next iteration of communication and it's something that will be continuous.
Speaker 7
This is Cliff Rechop and I had one comment and then a general comment and specific one for Aaron. I think we heard from Supervisor Teeter, Mayor Mashburn, Supervisor Hopkins about the importance of the utilities trying to defray some of the costs of PSPSs and provide solutions or mitigation for critical infrastructure. It's I know that's a theme that informing the investments of the utilities. I think it's very important that you continue to focus on those efforts. Erin, Supervisor Hopkins specifically called out the small water systems that don't have backup power.
She said the local governments in Sonoma County have been left to pick up the tab for most of the costs of the PSVS. So when you circle back with her, as I know you said you would, if you could follow-up on some of the measures that PG and E is taking to address the concerns that she raised. I see that Aaron just said a note in the chat that he's lost audio, so you can respond when you're able to join us or just respond after this session is over.
Speaker 21
Were there any other questions from any of the commissioners? Now it's getting late in the day. Commissioner Hall cast her hand up. Commissioner?
Speaker 6
Just a follow-up on, I think, Commissioner Rexhauffin's earlier comment and Commissioner Baxter's direction to Pacific Corp on providing follow-up on their tribal outreach and consultation. If they could specifically include information regarding their follow-up with the Karuk tribe, that would be greatly appreciated when they provide that information commission. And I wanted to thank all
Speaker 2
I support say thank you. This discussion and the previous one were really good in terms of representatives giving direct feedback to the investor owned utilities and and to hear the conversation and for we commissioners to witness that that conversation and to see the connections being made and strengthen, I hope, between the local communities and the local representatives,
Speaker 2
AFN representatives earlier to the utilities so that really amplifies the importance of these efforts to mitigate the PSPS impact. So thank you very much for all of us who put this together. And
Speaker 21
thank you all. If there's no other questions from the commissioners, I guess I would just hand it back to President Thatcher and thank all the panelists today for participating as well as the IRUs. I think it was a very productive dialogue. And with that, I'll let, I guess, President Thatcher make any closing comments.
Speaker 2
Well, I want to thank you, Stephanie, for your wonderful moderation today, this afternoon, and thank all of the panelists for their very good questions. And I appreciate that the IOUs had representatives here to answer. And if there's more in-depth answers or communications, I would encourage you to continue to talk to the local governments, the tribal governments, and other constituents. With that, we have to we need to move to public comment. We're about twenty minutes behind and we have people that are waiting on the line so I would ask for those who are still on the line with us from the IOUs and some of the panelists, if you can spare the time, please listen in.
The public comment is very important to the commissioners and myself. So I would invite you to please stay on the line. So we will now turn to public comments. If you wish to make a public comment dial into (800) 857-1917 and enter passcode 500000180519Pound and press 1. You will be placed in the queue and the operator will take your name and information if appropriate.
If you have already dialed in to the public comment telephone line, please press 1 to get into the public comment queue. You will have two minutes to speak. You will hear a bell sound when your time is up. Please adhere to that rule because others will be waiting in line. So with that guidance in mind, I welcome today's speakers and I will turn it back to the operator to open up the public comment telephone line.
Operator, could you please bring on the first speaker?
Speaker 9
Yes, thank you. The public comment line is open. And our first speaker is Marissa Kastner. Your line is open.
Speaker 24
Thank you. Is Melissa Kasnik from the Center for Accessible Technology, which is the most active party representing the interests of medically vulnerable customers regarding de energization. I would say that the members of the AFM panel who spoke earlier today were polite, but I'd like to be blunt about what's been going on for members of the AFM community. The IOUs have been turning off power for several years now, and the risks to the AFN population were flagged from the get go but haven't been addressed. These customers have been burdened while the IOUs say that they are learning as they go.
This was exactly as predicted, but it's unreasonable and it's unjust. What the IOUs describe as learning experiences for them are terrifying and costly for customers and communities who are at risk. The responses earlier today on medical baseline were illustrative. The commission has already ordered the IOUs to expand support for customers with medical needs beyond those enrolled in medical baseline. But in fact, this past wildfire season, nothing was offered to these customers.
No increased notification, no increased support, and the fact that the panelists today were offering to listen and learn more is too little and too late at this point. Representatives of the AFM community, including C4AT, have been raising issues since this proceeding began. It's not the time for the IOUs to first be reacting and saying, oh, we have a lot of learning to do. The CPUC's directives have not been meaningfully implemented, and the IOUs absolutely need to do better, not behave as if each time they hear something, they're hearing it for the first time. Thank you.
Speaker 28
Hi. My name is Alexa Martin, and I'm the program manager of the Independent Living Resource Center, which serves individuals with disabilities in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties. When PSPS's first began, we knew right away that as a community based organization in a high fire, risk area, we needed to be a part of the solution. We began by educating the utility companies on what people with disabilities that are reliant on power need how significant impacts of a PSPS could be, as well as ensuring the individuals we serve have the backup power they need during a shutoff. Throughout our efforts and communications with SCE, we have felt that they have understood our concerns, we have been met with nothing but support.
The understanding and support has been reinforced consistently, especially in recent months. We are now contracting with Edison to perform marketing to people with disabilities in our areas, their family members, doctors, the broader public about the medical baseline program and other programs available through SCE. They continuously seek information on us for feedback in ways they can improve their response in the community. What it really comes down to is that public safety power shutoffs are challenging for everyone, especially the disability community. They impact planning, preparation, and communication.
However, it is our experience that SCE has been very responsive to all of our suggestions, supported our highest risk community members, and have done their best to keep the community prepared and informed, and are committed to learning and growing through each experience. Thank you for taking the time for public comment.
Speaker 23
Thanks very much and thank you to the panel for an informative conversation. I appreciated all the participation, particularly Supervisor Hopkins from Sonoma County and her comments representing residents here in Sonoma County. I think what we've heard is that there is more work that needs to get done and more specific commitments from the IOUs in terms of what they will do during power safety, power shutoffs. So providing information will enable the local governments and the tribes to be able to better collaborate. This includes information about the sectionalization devices and where those are located and what those are so that the local governments and the tribes can contribute to decisions about where and what gets shut off and when.
Without that information, there is little that local governments can do to collaborate on those issues. This needs to be done along with wind sensors and other information so that the local governments have the information to provide the IOUs constructive feedback. I would also say that the CRCs are an area where there's much improvement that needs to be made. Service level agreements that are often used by the IOUs with their vendors should be used in this case to very specifically spell out in contractual language what the IOUs will do and will not do during power safety power shutoffs. Additionally, I would suggest that the AFN populations receive similar orientation around results orientation for the communications.
The ILUs have stepped up their commitment to achieving results in terms of PSPS communications, but for whatever reason, in guidelines and in the wildfire mitigation plans for AFN populations, talk about how and the types of ways that they will go about communication. I would encourage you to please make sure that those communications are results oriented. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you. Well, with no more callers on the line, the public comment period is now closed. I thank you all for participating. For those who did call in, I do want to again extend my thank you for all of our panelists today and for those who participated in listening into the panel discussion.
I particularly want to thank the staff of the CPUC. These workshops are extremely important, but they do take a lot of work. So I want to thank our Executive Director, Rachel Peterson for her leadership and her guidance. And I would like to thank FED, our Safety Enforcement Division and all of the folks that worked so hard. Thank you so much, Leigh Palmer and Tony Knoll and to our team.
I want to thank David Van Dyken who helped moderate our panelists this afternoon as well as Vance Taylor and I want to thank Stephanie Green of course who just finished her moderating of our local and tribal governments and of course Robert Stanford who has been working so hard all day long to keep us all connected and online and with our video working and our audio working and for his team as well. Great thanks. I want to thank my fellow commissioners for their participation today and their terrific questions and their attention as always to detail. So with that, oh most importantly I want to thank my Chief of Staff Shannon O'Rourke who has been working hard with the team since January on making this day occur. So thank you all very much, and thank you for those that I didn't name by name.
Thank you, thank you. And we will do we will have follow-up, I'm sure. And in some cases, we've already listed what's going to be followed up with the IOUs in particular to answer some of our questions. So thank you all very much, and I appreciate your involvement today.
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