Regulator demands smoother handling of PG&E shutoffs
California’s most powerful utility regulator is stepping up her efforts to limit Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s planned blackouts ahead of this year’s wildfire season.
Marybel Batjer, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, told PG&E on Thursday that she found “serious deficiencies” in the way the company says it is improving its shutoff program.
Reports that PG&E filed with the commission were “fundamentally inadequate” in the amount of specifics provided, and the company inappropriately stopped filing the reports entirely last month, Batjer said.
She ordered PG&E to start filing more detailed reports, brief the commission about its plans to restrict blackouts and prepare to test its program with state officials.
Additionally, an administrative law judge for the commission has proposed new fireprevention blackout guidelines for all of the state’s investorowned utilities.
If ultimately approved by the
commission, the guidelines would instruct utilities to restore power no more than 24 hours after risky weather conditions subside, improve access to information online and provide a better public rationale when they decide to cut power, among other changes.
The added regulatory scrutiny of public safety power shutoffs, which are intended to prevent power lines from starting more catastrophic fires during windstorms, comes as PG&E, in particular, is under broad pressure not to repeat last year’s widespread blackouts. The company placed millions of Californians in the dark for days during a number of shutoffs, mostly in October, leading to widespread backlash.
Batjer ruled Thursday that within 15 days, PG&E executives must meet with the safety director of the commission to present a “detailed plan” about its abilities, planned improvements and expected challenges in regard to fireprevention blackouts this year.
The plan must cover PG&E’s weather prediction services, public outreach plans, critical infrastructure support and electrical system improvements to reduce the reach of power shutoffs, she said.
Within 45 days of Batjer’s ruling, PG&E must have established updated power shutoff procedures and be ready to conduct a dry run at random with the state Office of Emergency Services, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and staff at the utilities commission.
PG&E also needs to set up “active working groups” with tribal and local governments to address their needs before, during and after blackouts, Batjer ruled.
A group of local governments previously told the utilities commission that PG&E had kept them at a distance, communicated poorly and overstated the areas where power was likely to go out in October.
PG&E said it would respond to Batjer’s ruling by the deadline.
“When circumstances dictate, a decision to turn off the power for safety can protect against devastating consequences, but PG&E is keenly aware that deenergization events also disrupt lives and present their own public safety risks,” PG&E spokesman Matt Nauman said in a statement. “Even a perfectly executed (power shutoff ) event will impose hardships on individuals and communities, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances.”
Nauman added that “PG&E embraces actions that result in safer power shutoff events and are less burdensome on affected communities.”
Batjer has already been sharply critical of how PG&E executed last year’s mass blackouts.
In October, she said that PG&E’s missteps during widespread shutoffs that month had “created an unacceptable situation that should never be repeated.” She told PG&E executives days later that they had “failed on so many levels.”
And in November, she signed an order requiring PG&E to show why it should not be sanctioned for its blackout problems, including a faulty website that prevented customers from obtaining vital information.
State legislators are considering forcing changes, too. State Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, is carrying a bill that would create a way to make PG&E pay customers for spoiled food and other losses they incur during blackouts. The Senate passed his bill, SB378, on Monday, when one senator said lawmakers should focus more on the utilities commission. The bill will go to the Assembly for consideration.