The California Public Utilities Commission and state emergency officials told Southern California Edison this week that it had mishandled its public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) in 2020 and needs to work quickly to improve its communications with customers and government agencies.

“I called this meeting and required the presence of Southern California Edison’s leadership because of my deep concern over Edison’s overall execution of its public safety power shutoff events this past year,” CPUC President Marybel Batjer said in the online meeting Tuesday. “Reliable electricity service is essential to the safety and well-being of all Californians. It is important service in normal times, and it is even more critical now with the majority of Californians learning and working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The meeting continued the CPUC’s efforts to enforce PSPS rules for the state’s large investor-owned utilities. Pacific Gas and Electric came under fire last year for its extensive use of PSPS in 2019. (See PG&E Working to Improve Safety Blackouts.)

Batjer was joined on the virtual dais by her three fellow commissioners and Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), and Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). SCE CEO Kevin Payne and five of the company’s vice presidents responsible for PSPS events responded to their grilling.

Batjer noted that SCE called 16 power shutoffs from May to December, including one on Thanksgiving and another on Christmas Eve. The utility continued to use PSPS into mid-January, with rain scarce in Southern California and Santa Ana winds creating hazardous fire conditions.

The day before the Thanksgiving shutoff, the utility told customers they could lose power around 3 p.m., but the utility began to cut power at 9 a.m., before families could prepare their holiday meals. The timing was terrible, and notices to customers were confusing and contradictory, as with many of SCE’s PSPS events, Batjer said.

During power shutoffs, staff members at the CPUC, OES and Cal Fire had “observed numerous instances in which Edison’s PSPS execution appeared tactless and in many regards seemed deficient,” she said. It is not evident the company knows how to communicate with customers or state and local governments when executing shutoffs, she continued.

She added that the company’s reporting to the CPUC after the events was often late and incomplete.

“These missteps cannot be repeated,” Batjer said.

The utility has fallen far behind its targets for identifying customers who rely on medical devices and ensuring they have backup power, she said.

In a letter calling the meeting, Batjer ordered the utility to file a corrective action plan by Feb. 12.

Porter said SCE needs to harden its grid so it does not need to shut off power as frequently.

“PSPS was always meant to be a last resort,” the Cal Fire chief said. “Last resort means we’ve done everything possible to not flip that switch.”

Ghilarducci told the SCE executives that he was concerned the utility was using PSPS as a tool of “first resort.” The state allows utilities to shut off power to prevent fires in a worst-case scenario with winds of 80-90 mph, not 16-20 mph, as SCE has done, he said.

The purpose is “not to be able to provide a liability coverage across the board for any event,” he said.

The OES director said the company had failed to notify the state before some PSPS events and lacked standardized criteria for its decision making. The utility seemed to use different criteria for every event, he said. “There are baseline consistencies that can be driven into the protocols.”

SCE Responds

Payne acknowledged SCE needs to better communicate with its customers.

“If there are areas where we have failed in that regard, we will continue our improvement until we succeed,” he said.

Rapidly changing winds and weather had “created some confusion with notifications,” he said, but the utility is trying to improve its weather forecasting to reduce the number of customers potentially affected by PSPS and to avoid last-minute shutoffs.

The utility is accelerating its grid hardening program after installing nearly 1,000 miles of covered conductor last year, he said.

Jill Anderson, senior vice president for customer service, said SCE was seeking to reduce the number of notifications customers receive leading up to a PSPS event. Typically, they receive about six notices, which can sometimes give conflicting information, she said.

For instance, hundreds of thousands of customers might be notified that they could fall within the scope of a PSPS event only to learn later that they will not lose power. The company has sectionalized its grid so it can target shutoffs more narrowly and reduce the number of residents ultimately affected, executives said.

Phil Herrington, senior vice president for transmission and distribution, said that prior to a Dec. 4 shutoff, SCE notified 230,000 customers that they could lose power but ended up blacking out about 78,000 customers.

Responding to concerns about backup batteries, Anderson said the utility had had trouble identifying and contacting medical baseline customers but was trying to increase its outreach. The utility has provided 830 backup batteries so far and intends to distribute 3,000 to 4,000 additional batteries this year to vulnerable customers in high-risk fire areas, she said.

Ghilarducci said he was “frustrated and perplexed” by the company’s poor performance, with so few people getting batteries in its massive service territory. The state has long made it clear that helping at-risk customers is a top priority, he said.

“This should have been done two years ago quite frankly,” he said. “Where we’re at today in this discussion is not good.”

Payne assured Batjer that all the concerns raised would be addressed in SCE’s February action plan.