TAKEAWAYS FROM THE CPUC WILDFIRE MITIGATION PLAN WORKSHOP A step in the right direction on a multi-year journey to ensure safety and regain confidence among stakeholders

September 23, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO – With several months of difficult for the CPUC which has been tasked trial-and-error under their belts, it is evident with finding third-party evaluators. The major the journey has just begun for the California hurdle is the wide scope of expertise needed in Public Utility Commission (CPUC) and the six risk management, data analytics, biggest Investor Owned Utilities (IOU), as meteorology, fire science, and electrical they provided updates on their Wildfire infrastructure. This challenge is further Mitigation Plans (WMP) during September’s increased due to the need to ensure these WMP Workshop. The IOUs that attended the evaluators are independent and unbiased. workshop were San Diego Gas and Electric Not only are the utilities and the CPUC (SDG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), learning from one another and sharing their Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), findings, external industry experts are also Liberty Utilities, Bear Valley Electric Service weighing in by giving risk management advice and PacifiCorp. based on previous learnings from other All six IOUs are taking a multifaceted industries. In order to improve risk approach to wildfire prevention by ramping management throughout the utility industry, up inspections, hardening their systems, experts have suggested evoking a behavior- managing vegetation, proactively preparing based culture change around wildfire for emergencies and engaging with their mitigation to make safety the priority. The respective communities. The IOUs are using industry must also use standardized metrics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine pool data from other utilities, use AI and ML learning (ML), monitoring their assets in real- to analyze data, include near misses in time, expanding their weather station reporting and be transparent with all networks, installing smart meters, and stakeholders involved, including the public. utilizing drones. They are also deploying new The industry also needs to find common and innovative technologies which are playing understandings and definitions, create and set a vital role such as Rapid Earth Fault Current these standardized metrics and share data and Limiting (REFCL) technology, fire spread resources. modeling tools and storm-outage prediction. The workshop allowed the utilities, CPUC and Finally, all IOUs have turned their attention stakeholders to hold important discussions from a compliance-based approach to a risk- around metrics and reporting as well as the based approach. evaluation and submission process of the While the IOUs are making progress on their WMPs. On September 6th, 2019 17 proposed WMPs, they all expressed facing similar metrics were submitted by various challenges with implementing the plans. Of stakeholders, which aim to determine the large concern was having a limited number of effectiveness of the WMPs. These metrics qualified personnel, such as arborists and measure the utilities’ capability, exposure contractors, and a limited number of steel drivers, frequency drivers, triggering events, pole manufacturers. Furthermore, delays and response rate. related to weather and project permitting has While more work still needs to be done, the also impacted the WMPs. outlook is positive with utilities taking an Despite having fewer power lines to maintain increased number of actions to limit wildfires. and monitor, smaller utilities also highlighted a lack of resources and are therefore unable to be as innovative and proactive when For more information contact Business Sweden and the compared to the larger IOUs. Cleantech Hub in San Francisco +1 212 507 9002 [email protected] While the IOUs have had their challenges, ensuring compliance has also proved to be https://cleantechhubs.se www.business-sweden.se

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