(upbeat music)
Moderator: Welcome to the
California Public Utilities Commission,
on this day, Tuesday, January, 26, 2020.
This is the Public Safety Power Shutoff,
PSPS hearing on the operation and performance
of Southern California Edison.
Bring the 2020 PSPS events in California.
President Marybel Batjer conveyed in meeting shortly.
If you speak during the public comment period,
please press star zero, unmute your phone
and record your name and organization clearly when prompted.
You will be placed into a queue (indistinct)
identified yourself when it comes time for you to speak.
I will announce your name and then I will open your line.
Please note that we are expecting a high volume of callers.
If you do not, if we did not get to you right away
to take your name, please (indistinct) stay on the line.
(upbeat music)
-: Yes, I'm present.
Thank you. -: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: He will be late.
We have been notified of that.
Robert: Do you want me to call the other speakers
that are on the panel right now, ma'am.
-: Yes, I do, Robert.
Thank you.
Robert: Mr. Tommy.
Mr. Correct Tommy.
-: I'm sorry about that.
President Dysport, the director Porter from Cal Fire.
Robert: Thank you, sir.
Mrs. Jill Anderson.
-: I am here. -: Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Kevin Payne. -: Yes, I'm here.
Robert: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Phil Herrington.
-: Yes, I'm here. -: Mr. Steve Powell.
-: Present.
-: Mr. Donald Dangler.
-: I'm here. -: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Era, Eric (indistinct)? -: I'm here.
Thank you. -: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Lee Powell. -: I'm here.
Thank you.
Robert: Thank you.
-: I've heard I don't recall hearing on Director Ghilarducci,
or anybody else from OES.
Robert: Yes, ma'am.
-: Are they present?
Robert: Mr. Mark Ghilarducci.
Mr. Tom Porter.
-: Tom Porter is on. -: Thank you, sir.
Did I miss anyone?
-: Can you call (muffled speaking)
and Mark (indistinct) from Southern California Edison
is also here. -: Thank you, Mr. (indistinct).
-: And Robert, Commissioner Rechtschaffen has joined us
Robert: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
Mr. Rechtschaffen, are you able to hear me sir?
President Batjer looks like I can see
Commissioner Rechtschaffen speaking but I do not hear him.
I will resolve this with the operator.
-: Okay, thank you.
And I've just text Director Ghilarducci
to see if he's joining us.
Tom Porter do you know whether Mark is intending to join?
-: I don't know specifically, no.
See what he says.
And if he does get on, can I ask if I can go first on
our openings because I'm gonna have to go silent
for about a half an hour. -: Okay, sure, Tom.
No problem.
-: Marybel Batjer, can you hear me now?
-: Yes. -: Okay.
Sorry about that.
-: And Mark is on.
-: Oh, I yes.
I see that he is on, okay, great.
And it's a DC mag.
So Robert, Director Ghilarducci is on.
Robert: Thank you President Batjer.
Hello, Mr. Ghilarducci may have mispronounced your name
and I apologize.
-: Has he called in then? -: Has he called in
do you think? -: Yes.
Yes, President Batjer.
He has called in I see his name in the phone call.
-: I think we're pretty close to starting, Mark.
(upbeat music)
Robert: President Batjer, it's Robert Stanford again,
just want to inform you and the panelists
that we are now live.
-: [President Batjer] Thank you, Robert.
I think that Director Ghilarducci
is still having difficulty, he having difficulty trying
to dial in and get into the audios.
So if someone could please contact him offline,
that would be helpful.
Robert: I will do that President Batjer.
-: [President Batjer] Thank you.
Okay, operator, are you prepared?
(upbeat music)
Operator: Welcome and thank you for standing by.
At this time all participants are in listen only mode
until the question and answer session
of today's conference.
At that time you may press star one on your phone
to ask a question.
I will now turn today's call over
to Marybel Batjer.
Thank you, you may begin.
-: Thank you all operator.
And thank you all this is going to probably
be a long afternoon.
So I appreciate very much your participation.
So good afternoon, I would like to thank
Chief Porter and Director Ghilarducci as well as
my fellow Commissioners for joining us today
for this very important public meeting.
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.
Reliable electricity service is essential to the safety
and well being of all Californian.
It is important, it is important service in normal times.
And it is even more critical now
that the majority of Californians learning and working
from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The acceleration of climate change has caused
our wildfire seasons to start earlier, and end later.
2020 into early 2021 has been a very long fire season.
And Californians have experienced a significant number
of power shut offs by the utilities, particularly by Edison.
It is raining across the state, thank God,
now, but we bought until last week, in mid January,
Edison and PG&E we're still continuing
to call power shutoff events
as part of their wildfire prevention strategies.
We have been driving the utilities to reduce
the risk of utility caused wildfire through better planning,
grid hardening, and vegetation management.
Another wildfire mitigation tool available to them
is to shut up power to customers.
Unlike the other mitigation strategies, however,
power shut off have very real
and immediate impacts to customers.
Every time the utility shuts off the power
it is trading off the safety and immediate well being
of its customers to mitigate risk of igniting a wildfire.
That shut off is why shut offs must be at trade offs,
excuse me, is why shut off must be a measure
of last resorts.
And they must be executed safely and thoughtfully
when they are called.
Because the stakes of turning off power for customers,
particularly our state's most vulnerable are very high.
These shut offs aren't just an inconvenience.
For many, loss of power means loss of income,
loss of a day or more of learning,
and fear and uncertainty for those who rely on backup power
to sustain life supporting medical services.
These are hard economic times
and many Californians are unemployed.
And for those with jobs, loss of work due to PSPS events,
puts further pressure on people's already challenging lives.
The stakes of a PSPS event
are people's lives and livelihoods.
And these are stakes that must be continually underscored
when we invited Edison and the other utilities
to the Commission last August to present to the public
on their preparedness to execute the PSPS events in 2020,
this was something I emphasized and I do so again today.
The effects on people's lives are not theoretical.
They are very real.
In August, (mumbles) at the August meeting
I also inform the utilities that on PSPS
they would be judged by outcomes not by the plan.
Not by we were thinking of doing,
not by what we're gonna plan to do,
not what we're planning on doing,
but know, by the outcomes of what they have done.
When looking at the outcomes of Edison's PSPS events
this past year overall, there are a number of areas
where I believe Edison did not measure up to the standards
it's customers deserve.
Utilities should execute PSPS events in a manner
that places the well being of the people and communities
they serve first.
Edison initiated 16 power shut offs
between May and December.
The majority of the events were in November and December,
including two during major holiday, 16 events.
My partners on the Dyess here and our staff in the field
observe numerous instances in which Edison's PSPS execution
appeared tactless, and in many regards, seemed deficit.
Essentially, it is not evidence that you considered
and know how to effectively communicate with customers
or with state and local governments
when executing these events.
The notifications to your customers were confusing
and at times contradictory and overall were poorly executed.
These missteps cannot be repeated.
The loss of power causes major disruptions to businesses,
medical facilities, communication carriers,
and other critical infrastructure.
It strains state and local emergency
and public safety personnel as they work
to ensure public safety.
We saw the impacts poor planning and execution
can have on customers through the PG&E's dismal
PSPS execution in 2019.
Well, the issues are different here,
and are more related to trends
and communicating and coordinating.
SCE has its own lessons to learn this year.
And I hope that other utilities will also take notice.
Among the various problems we observed were issues
with the level of transparency around Edison's PSPS
decision making process in adequate notice notification
to impacted customers, poor coordination and communication
with state and local governments,
shortcomings in identifying and notify medical baseline
and access and functional needs customers
and the efficient PSPS post event reporting
to the Commission.
In addition, I continue have,
I continued to have serious concerns, with the pace at which
SCE has been deploying backup power
to help vulnerable customers cope with PSPS.
With regard to Edison's notification shortcomings,
Edison ended up only the energizing 20% of the customers
it gave advance notices to this past fire season,
what is desired to have the fewest customers
be energized as possible.
There's something wrong with the planning approach.
If you're consistently putting large numbers of customers
on notice, people are changing their plans
getting prepared and then nothing happens.
There were also instances where the opposite happened,
where customers were de-energized with no notice.
Weather for weather forecasting a communication
certainly needs improvement.
There are numerous other examples that identified
in my letter to Edison
and that I trust Edison will address today.
But what is most important is that these mistakes
are not repeated.
Last year, the CPUC had to enhance its oversight
of fujianese corrective actions going
into the 2020 fire season.
We will do this with Edison this year,
and are prepared to do that again in the future year.
If that is necessary, whatever is needed,
we will be hosting a public workshop at the end of February
to hear from all utilities and impacted communities
on the lessons learned from 2020 PSPS events.
So while Edison is the focus of today's meeting,
there are areas for improvement of all these utilities
that we will be considering in the weeks and months ahead.
That being said the objective for today's meeting
is to hear from Edison about the deficiencies
and the operational gaps in their execution of PSPS
this past year, and to hear their plans
for correcting these shortcomings.
So they are not repeated in fire season 2021.
In addition to hearing from Edison,
we will also hear from elected officials
who represent Californians who were impacted
by the power shut off, as well as
from impacted customers themselves during our public comment
period at the end of this meeting.
With that I would like to turn to my fellow agency
leaders on the Dyess, Chief Porter,
would you like to speak first and then Director Ghilarducci?
Tom: Yes, President Batjer.
Thank you very much, members of the Commission.
Thanks for having myself and Director Ghilarducci on.
I am gonna make it quick
because truly what President Batjer laid out was
the absolute concern of myself and CAL FIRE as well.
The things that I want to make sure are focused on
truly are hardening infrastructure,
and segmentation, vegetation management,
all of those elements.
Those need to be the key component to having a resilient
infrastructure that we don't have to shut off
or you don't have to shut off.
Honing your weather and fuels monitoring.
I know you have very good individuals
that are doing that work for you.
Some of the best in the business,
but do know, still.
They are not the responders and responders
and what's going on in response and with the resources
available and other elements are also key components
to what that picture looks like.
And then your wildfire mitigation plan.
I look for, I look forward to continuous improvements
and upgrades of that plan as well as implementation
of the plan, and ensuring that you're meeting the marks
that you've set forth.
So today, I'll be listening for all of those items,
as well as a critique of your own efforts.
And for my final statement, I'll end with
what President Batjer started with,
which is PSPS has always been meant to be a last resort.
Last resort means we've done everything absolutely possible
to not flip that switch.
And that's what.
Operator: If you would like to make a public comment,
please press star one.
And please record your name.
Once again, star one for a public comment.
Thank you.
-: To Director Ghilarducci I hope we got
his audio straightened out.
(indistinct) you are, you're on?
-: All right. -: Yeah, we can see
you too, Mark, great.
Thank you. -: Good, excellent.
Well, great to be with you today.
Thanks for the opportunity to join you and the Commissioners
and my partner, Chief Porter, into today's event
and our folks from
Southern California Edison talk about PSPS.
You know, I unfortunately my audio wasn't working.
I didn't necessarily hear initially,
what President Batjer was saying, but I can imagine
what President Batjer was saying,
because we have had many discussions
over the course of the last year,
as you know, Southern California Edison has
implemented PSPS events.
And I'll start off by saying, starting off by saying
something that Chief Porter just mentioned about the intent
of PSPS as being one of last resort,
versus one of first resort.
And really the intent of the legislation.
And the opportunity to do PSPSs was not to be able
to provide a liability coverage across
the board for any event.
But in fact, that ability to use that tool,
as a preventative for starting fires,
in a worst case scenario, that is in cases where
we're gonna see, you know,
very, very significant wind events.
I'm not talking about wind events of 16,
to maybe even 20 miles an hour,
I'm talking about wind events of at 90 miles an hour,
where we're gonna definitely see
potentially damage to the infrastructure.
You know, we know that the decision to execute a PSPS
is a tough one, we get it.
Especially when you consider the magnitude of the damage
to life and property and the environment when an IOU
does not execute a PSPS.
But again, it's that delta is that sophistication.
It's that nuance that is necessary looking at
all of the technical details, the forecasting
the predictive analysis,
the conditions to be able to make that decision.
And that decision, of course,
we know lies only with the IOU.
And we know as well, that Southern California Edison
does not take it lightly.
So I'm not suggesting that they do.
But I have to tell you, that, you know, as the agencies
ourselves PUC and CAL FIRE responsible for ensuring
that the our IOU providing the state
and local government public safety officials
with ample notification and details prior to and leading up
to the advancement also in having to be the agencies
that deal with the consequences of a PSPS
the cascading impacts to the community at large
is not just an action that Southern California is taking
to protect themselves.
But to protect the community.
And then the cascading actions that all of us need to lift
the heavy lift that we all do to be able to respond to this.
It's really extremely important that the IOU knows
that they're working within an operational construct,
as we do in the public safety arena,
which is very, very specific is necessary to ensure
their standardized approach to decision making,
not just at your level, but also at our level,
and then down to our local government partners
and to the public.
So that they can make the most informed decision
for as a family as an individual
to be able to respond to this right.
And notifying the state local governments
that a PSPS has been executed.
Despite the extensive engagement with SCE,
there does continue to be a significant challenge
with inconsistency in the ability to provide
the state agency that I just mentioned,
with a detailed timely notification of planned outages,
as well as an inconsistency in the criteria
that is being used to make that determination
of going through with PSPS.
It is almost different in every case,
that we're dealing with Southern California Edison,
and I understand that weather conditions are driving this,
they change as well.
But there are baseline consistencies that can be driven in
to protocols with regards to these notifications.
As a result, the state must mobilize additional resources
to mitigate both the impacts of the events themselves,
as well as the consequences of Southern California Edison's
notification issues, meaning we have to pivot
to fill the gaps to be able to figure out what's going on.
Here's a couple of key examples.
First of all,
the notifications need to reflect the highest stage
in which the IOU is entered into a PSPS activity.
In many cases, there are these events,
while performing activities, that will be on the stage
that the IOU was performing activities
that were beyond the stage that they were submitting.
As far as notification, we were out of sync.
We need to be partners in this which means we need
to be tightly aligned and being in sync together,
as we're moving forward.
It's actually good for you, it's good for us.
And of course that ultimately benefits the citizens
so that they all realize that we're all working together.
The IOU, you should not be submitting decisions
to de-energized notifications to us,
after they've already began.
de-energizing their customers,
at least that's actually occurred.
Okay, that's really behind the power curve.
We've had cases where there's been a failure
to address customer (indistinct) issues in a timely manner,
despite repeated requests by the state operation center
or the California State Warning Center
to bring it we brought to the attention to cases of Edison
during at least two separate state executive calls
and three PSPS events.
And only after continued pressures and 1000s of customers
affected many of them calling us
was the utility able to resolve the issue.
And we have what we call essential elements of information.
Those are key pieces of information.
We're not requiring only Southern California Edison,
to supply us with those EDI's,
it's so sad, even gas electric.
It's the PG&E, it's across the board,
it builds that standardization.
And we are responding around that.
But consistently, SCE submitting there (indistinct) report,
at least 20 minutes late, often hours late,
and being able to give us that critical information
so that we can be as prepared as possible.
These are standardized reports required of all IOU use,
starting at seven in the morning, going to 15:00 hours
in the afternoon.
And often our situations sell must constantly reach out
and pull that data versus being offered it.
As well, our sellers initiated a series of meetings SCE
to do operational reviews to review those protocols.
And look, each time we get a lot of consistent.
Yes, we're on board.
Yes, we wanna do it.
Yes, we wanna, we apologize.
But one and once, twice, maybe three times.
But it's a constant issue, right.
So we need to get past that.
And you know, I can talk about a few more of these.
But you get the point with regard to the fact
that there are key elements that if we're all gonna
be working in this together, we need to know
what criteria you're following.
Have that criteria consistently apply.
You have to meet the requirements that we've set it forth
that we work with the PUC to put forth
that is not just for you but for all IOUs.
We have to approach this in a way
that we are in front of a PSPS event taking place.
And not having to play catch up.
And then lastly,
there's a key element here that we are,
we're still having challenges (mumbles),
because as he continues to remain unable to identify which
of his customers rely on power to maintain
operational life sustaining medical devices,
particularly input we're getting from the access
and functional needs community that's coming to us.
Now, you may have this and you may have achieved it,
or you may have fixed it, but it's not being shared with us.
Okay, so that needs to be addressed in effective
and meaningful customer care plan for identification
of (indistinct) customers, essential to ensuring
that the most vulnerable customers are able to remain safe,
secure and independent before, during and after a PSPS.
This is a fundamental premise, in my opinion,
that we've been working on when we started this
a couple years back, this is one of the cornerstones of us
trying to address this, right.
So it's very important that there's a sufficient plan
in place that will articulate the implementation
and addresses the these inadequacies, advanced notification,
community resource center location determination setup,
I have to tell you,
I asked every time about community resource centers.
And what I get back is they have a couple of mobile sites.
And they tell us that they but it's not a can't get
a tangible understanding of what's going on
in those community resource centers,
community based organization partner programs,
to provide emergency transportation,
hotels and lodging and meals for those who may need it.
I want to tell you moving forward, we, collectively,
these PSPS are happening more and more regularly.
There's no question they're extremely disruptive.
There's no question that when the conditions are right,
and the criteria is met, there are tools that must be used
to protect public safety.
It's that middle part that we need to continue to work on,
that the way you're using the tool is
adequate and consistent.
And that communication is being done in a friendly manner,
so that we're all responding accordingly.
And I know, and I am confident that,
you know, we all wanna get on the same page,
and I appreciate the ongoing partnership with you.
But these are really important topics.
And I know that this year, we're gonna get past them.
And we're gonna be better
and work together to make them successful.
So thank you, President Batjer,
and members of the Commission and our representative.
Mr. Payne, thank you very much for your time.
-: Thank you, Director Ghilarducci very much appreciate it.
Glad we were able to fix your audio
sorry that you weren't on sooner.
Now, I'm going to very quickly turn
to my fellow Commissioners.
Commissioner Shiroma, Commissioner Rechtschaffen,
do you have a few opening remarks you'd like to make?
-: Yes, thank you, President Batjer.
Many thanks to all for this hearing today.
As directors Porter and Ghilarducci as outlined.
It is essential for we who are in the regulatory
part of the effort
to really understand what was the performance for 2020
and what improvements are being envisioned for 2021
and all this towards minimizing PSPSs
and if resorting to them at last resort,
doing them in a very transparent and understandable
and comprehensible fashion.
So looking forward to the conversation.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
And now, Commissioner Rechtschaffen, please.
-: President Batjer, I don't have any opening remarks.
-: Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We will now move on to the opening remarks
from our elected officials.
Operator, I understand we have members in the queue
and I'm going to first turn to Congressman Garcia.
Congressman Garcia, are you on the line?
You might have to press star one.
Congressman: Can you hear me President Batjer-
-: I can, I can, Congressman.
Hello, good afternoon. -: Well, thank you
President Batjer.
First of all, I wanna commend you for your leadership
on this and and having this forum for all of stakeholders,
and most importantly, for the ratepayers to be able to watch
this and see firsthand the conversations,
I wanna also associate myself with your comments.
I have been in the midst of this not only
as an elected official, but as a candidate running
for office, but also as a constituent here subjected
to these shutdowns over the last couple of years.
And we absolutely need to end this practice.
This is an emotional event for a lot of folks.
And more importantly, it's become a tremendous
public safety issue.
And the irony of that is obviously
the PS and PSPS is public safety.
But I am convinced more than ever, now,
after seeing this for a couple of years that the harm
and the risk being imparted by these shutdowns
is actually greater than the harm and the risk
by the threat of these fires starting in our area.
We need to figure out how to change the thresholds
so that it's not being implemented in such an arbitrary
and capricious manner.
And we don't have folks in very rural areas
that are not only dependent on the power
but dependent on power for their water wells, as well,
in the little town of Agua Dulce they have
lost their power the equivalent of 10 days, 10 full days,
that's over the course of just the last
four months since September.
And these folks lose their water they lose their power.
So I do take issue when folks say that this is a tool
that must be used, or that they're trying to get
the operational support to those who are most
desperately in need of medical assistance
or life saving medical needs, when you have your power off,
and your water is not available
to you for three to four days.
That in and of itself, regardless of your age,
regardless of your location is a life threatening scenario.
And we will see losses of life as a result of this PSPS.
So my goal and my push even though this
is not a federal issue,
this is truly a constituent safety issue.
And I appreciate Edison's engagement,
they have been open to having conversations
with me directly over the course of the last nine months,
we've had great communications and they have achieved
some successes in hardening the grids,
I know the shovel circuit has been improved.
But they need to communicate that more.
And and frankly, that the practice and the utilization
of this has become more rampant instead of less
and less frequent.
So I gotta be honest, and say that I'm disappointed
that while we've been having these conversations,
their frequency of implementing the PSPS has not improved,
it's actually gotten a lot worse,
and we're seeing it in spades.
We live in Southern California,
where winds over 30 miles per hour are very common.
It has been this way for centuries, if not millennia,
and we need to have a grid that we're proud of,
and that we have confidence in the will continue to operate
within those conditions moving forward.
We have 10s of millions of ratepayers paying
a lot of money for power.
And they deserve better.
They deserve to have power to have the assurity
of that power when they need it,
and especially the water and power that goes with it.
So I'll cut to the chase and just ask my question,
when were these thresholds for the criteria of implementing
the PSPS implemented first?
Who came up with those thresholds?
And what is the rationale for those thresholds?
What is magical about the 30 miles an hour
and the red flag alert conditions,
the humidity and the temperature that we currently subscribe
to for triggering the event?
And why not raise those?
Understanding that we will eventually at some point
need to turn power off because it is a huge fire risk.
And there's dangerous to our grid as a result of high winds.
But can we dial it up by 10 miles an hour on the winds?
Can we dial it up by 15?
And why not?
If not, and I guess the question is directed
to Edison specifically on the operation side,
but anyone free to answer.
Thank you again, President Batjer.
-: Congressman thank you so much.
I will be sure that the Edison folks address your question
in their presentation.
Thank you very much.
And now I will turn to Senator and Chair (indistinct)
Senator: (indistinct) can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can sir.
Thank you. -: Thank you,
President Batjer and CPUC Commissioners
and of our CAL FIRE, Chief Porter
and Cal OES Director Ghilarducci.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide brief comments
at this meeting today.
As the chair of the Senate
Energy Utilities And Communications Committee,
our committee held multiple policy and informational
hearings on the issues and challenges posed
by electric utilities practice
of de-energizing electric circuits.
And, of course, the consequences
of turning off the power to customers.
In the fall of 2019, my committee had an eight hour
oversight hearing to hear from yourselves
and the three electric investor owned utilities,
including Southern California Edison regarding the lessons
that were learned, and the steps that needed to be applied
to improve the practice of shutting off power.
Of course, back in the end of 2018, we had,
or it was at the end of 2019, we had some power shut offs
that have resulted in damages and all the impacts
that were discussed and some of the comments
made by all of you today.
And we talked about how we could minimize those.
We also heard loud and clear from residents across the state
who are affected by the challenge, notifications,
the inadequate communications,
the poor coordination between the state cities,
counties and utilities, and the challenges for the medically
vulnerable and disabled population, among others.
Most of these shut offs and come with anticipated plans
on how to address the needs of the most
vulnerable populations affected by these.
And of course, there were consequences for that.
Those consequences, those issues were more acute
in the PG&E service territory.
But we also heard of challenges
in Southern California Edison's territory as well.
We all understood that the events of the fall
of 2019 were unacceptable and should not be repeated.
And we embarked on a future expecting
that these would be greatly reduced.
Last year, although the COVID-19 crisis required us
to prioritize bills and which led to a substantial reduction
in the bill load of the legislature.
My committee, and the senate generally continued
to prioritize the need to address wild fire risks.
And the improvements and practices related to proactive
power shut offs now coined the PSPS as an indication
of how important this is an issue to the legislature
and how it must be addressed.
We also held a five hour oversight hearing
to get an update from the CPUC.
And the three large electric utilities regarding the status
of the wildfire mitigation efforts included in PSPS,
especially because of the COVID crisis
and the need for residents to stay home
in order to reduce transmission of the deadly virus.
So, again, this
we felt that in the event of COVID,
that we had to take additional measures to ensure that we
protect the health of the public's health and safety.
We all understand the practice of proactively
de-energizing electric circuit
and that it has been a long standing tool
in the utilities toolbox.
We have been following this practice in California
at least in San Diego going back 15 years,
it's been a reserved, however, for instances where
maintaining electric power poses an immediate threat
or harm of loss of life and and a threat to property.
The practice of proactively shutting off power
to protect against electric utility equipment igniting
a wildfire has been a more recent practice in the history
as the threat of wildfire has grown in the state.
Although the CPUC Commissioners or urged the utility
electric utilities to use power shut up
as a last resort in July 2018.
When the CPUC passed a resolution on the issue
seems clear from the utilities practice,
that the use of PSPS in many cases and immediate tool
for utilities given the increasing risk of wildfires.
I believe going forward,
a judicious application must be the guiding principle.
What is judicious?
Well, that is something that we have to come to understand
together, working together to identify what judiciousness
is, especially when considering the big threats
to the most vulnerable in our community.
Electric utilities should strive to maintain electricity,
what is truly an essential service
and even more necessary during a pandemic.
The need to shut off power in order to prevent igniting
wildfire must be done judiciously
with as minimal impact to customers as possible.
And as a last resort when truly necessary,
with adequate customer notification and preparation.
The use of power setups must also be trumped
by the improvements to the system to reduce the need
to reduce the need of power shut off in the long term
and with well defined plans, and well engineered plans
that will minimize impacts to the customers.
In that regard, I welcome you're holding this public meeting
and Southern California Edison's letter,
noting their willingness to improve their practices
in coordination and communication.
I appreciate that very much.
Our committee will continue to follow these developments,
and ensure that all parties are doing their part
to improve the situation, including at our annual
oversight hearing of the PUC,
and as necessary oversight hearings of the utilities
themselves become necessary.
Thank you very much.
And I wish all of you a great year,
and I wish that you all stay healthy as well.
-: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Appreciate your words very much.
Now, we will turn to Assemblywoman (indistinct).
Assemblywoman: Commissioners thank you so much
for holding this hearing Cal OES, CAL FIRE
thank you as well.
This is an important hearing.
And I wanna also thank the representatives
of Southern California Edison for participating as well.
This issue is not only an issue of convenience,
cost and fairness, but it's an issue of public safety.
I represent a district that includes the
city of Simi Valley, the Santa Clarita Valley
as well as a town called Agua Dulce.
And I've been in office for 50 days now.
And it seems like in those 50 days,
the vast majority of PSPS events
under (indistinct) Edison have happened in my district.
In the past week alone,
I've heard from over 600 constituents about how PSPS events
have been very serious, have had very serious effects
on their lives, not the past 50 days.
In the past five days I've heard from 600 constituents
about their stories,
many families are working or studying from home
during this pandemic.
Families who rely on wildwater need to pump water
to their house to use the restroom.
Medical devices require-energy to operate.
Some life saving medications require cool storage,
food spoils without refrigeration,
and traffic intersections become unsafe
with out functioning traffic lights,
just to name a few of their concerns,
we're frustrated to say the least.
Now I am hopeful that we can all agree
that we need to mitigate the frequency and duration
of these PSPS events and work towards
where we don't need to shut down anybody's power.
Now I'm really committed to working with all
of our stakeholders to make this a reality.
And today's important part of that, that first step.
Now I did submit a letter to the Commissioners.
I appreciate the letter that and the questions
proposed to SoCal Edison.
I'm looking forward to their presentation.
I did submit a letter to the PUC and I look forward
to your response and working with everybody on this call
to end the need for PSP events.
Thanks so much.
-: Thank you very much, AssemblyWoman.
Thank you for joining us this afternoon.
And we are now moving on to Supervisor Donald Wagner
from Orange County.
Supervisor: Thank you, Madam President.
And it is a pleasure to be with you.
I thank you for convening this meeting.
On January, 7th, I sent a letter to the Commission which
I trust will become part of the record.
And I will give you the good news first,
your opening comments, Madam President said a lot
of what I wanted to say and I number one, thank you for it.
And number two, I'm very much looking forward
to Edison addressing those issues.
It is important that Edison be more responsive
and rein in the use of these PSPS events.
I am privileged to represent a number of canyons,
rural canyons here in Orange County that certainly amongst
folks in Orange County bear the brunt of the shutdowns.
And one thing that is critical.
You listed yourself Madam President,
a number of real world impacts that the shutdowns have.
And I wanna emphasize there is of course the uncertainty
you mentioned, just with the repeated threats of a shutdown.
But when the shutdown itself happens,
one of the other effects that maybe didn't get discussed
and needs to be considered by Edison
is the fact that when the power goes off,
at least in the canyons I represent,
so too goes off any communication,
so if there is a preemptive shutdown of power,
and then there is a fire,
or there is as we face with the rains,
a threat of a slide or a flood, the power is down,
the ability to call 911 is down, the ability to receive
alerts from our Orange County alert system is gone,
that not only leaves the residents literally in the dark,
but also very figuratively, in the dark in terms
of the threats to them, their families, their properties.
And so something like that threat needs to be considered
by Edison in making its determinations.
I will add, as I believe both Congressman Garcia
and Senator Wayso mentioned, the idea that the criteria
for the shutdown needs to be rethought by Edison.
I had a town hall.
Edison was there, I thank them for participating.
But I hope they heard the importance
of a little bit more measured criteria.
Not all of the Canyons that I represent are the same
and will be affected the same way
by winds of a certain speed.
And of course, throughout the state of California
the winds in my canyons may have different effects
than say the winds in the district represented
by Congressman Garcia or Assemblywoman (indistinct),
I would hope that Edison is on top of those distinctions
as it goes forward in responding to you
and this very important inquiry by the CPUC.
Thank you, Madam President and Commissioners.
-: Thank you very much. -: You're welcome.
-: Thank you very much, Supervisor Wagner,
for participating today and thank you for your remarks.
Now we'll move on to Mayor Keith Mashburn from Simi Valley.
Mayor: Thank you, honorable
President Batjer and Commissioners.
I am the elected mayor of the city of Simi Valley,
population 125,000 in Ventura County
and a former Ventura County Fire
battalion chief and investigator.
Simi Valley has too much experience with SCE's PSPS events.
In 2020, the city's six PSPS events
began in September ranging from 24 to 72 hours,
with one PSPS event each week between Thanksgiving Day
and December, 8th and another during the Christmas holiday.
Over 36,000 customers were impacted during any given event.
During these outages, customers received unintelligible
incomplete and confusing notifications.
Our residents request you to direct Edison leadership
to provide an explanation why the energizes circuits
that are wholly contained within fully developed
urban areas, including underground distribution lines,
where there is no clear danger of wildfire.
Our residents respectfully request the CPUC require Edison
to use a targeted approach in its PSPS events
by employing air switches on its circuits.
PSPS events may avert wildfire,
but they create other dangerous situations instead.
When SCE de-energizes it circuits traffic signals
within the circuit lose power and go dark.
This creates an extreme danger for drivers and pedestrians.
These dark intersections operational prior to the event
become a city liability.
The city respectfully requests the CPUC to compel Edison
to keep the power on to our traffic signals.
If Edison is unable to do so,
what liability will they assume
for creating these hazardous situations?
Will Edison reimburse cities the cost
to install backup power systems on the signals
to avert outages due to PSPS events?
Edison has no disincentive not to turn the power off
to 1000s of customers.
They don't reimburse their customers for food loss
in the refrigerators and freezers due to PSPS events.
They don't reimburse for large appliances
that fail when the circuit is reenergized.
Edison has successfully transferred the liability
that it has been seeking to avoid from wildfires
directly to its ratepayers and the communities
it serves on the taxpayers done.
President Batjer and honorable Commissioners,
please hold Edison financially responsible
for the dangerous situation is creating
in this service area.
Simi Valley resonance along with all SCE customers
deserve far better.
And I thank you for having this meeting.
Deeply appreciated by my constituency
and the city of Simi Valley.
Have a wonderful day.
-: Thank you, Mayor Mashburn.
I wanna thank you also for the letter
that you sent the Commission it was extremely helpful
in preparation for today.
Very thoughtful letter received many letters
from your constituents, including one that was extremely
detailed and helpful for Mr. Michael Murphy
of Simi Valley.
So thank you very much, Mayor.
We will now turn to Mayor David Shaver from Stanton.
David: Hello, can you hear me okay?
-: Yes, we certainly can, Mr. Mayor.
David: Okay, use David Schobert.
But that's quite alright. -: I still apologize.
But the name like Batjer, and Chava,
I should have gotten that right.
Thank you. -: That's too simple.
It's a way it's spelled.
Anyway, I wanna thank the Public Utilities Commission,
the board CAL FIRE.
And, of course, Edison for putting in getting this going.
I'm coming from a little bit different point.
I've heard a lot of concerns, which I'm also aware of,
fortunately, in my area of Southern California,
which is Orange County,
which has a very urban and condensed population.
Edison has done some things which I wanna share with you,
which I think is a part of a solution.
Number one, their outreach program has
greatly improved over the past year.
I know that there's two types of emergencies
that have affected my community at (faintly speaking).
The first one being the rolling blackouts,
and the other ones that have been caused
by some kind of an emergency, you know,
whether it's a car hitting a telephone pole, or human,
other human activity, or Mother Nature.
I will let you know that the nice thing about it is that
we have not been offline that much
because of the grid system that has been established
by Southern California Edison in our urban area.
It's nice to know that the Public Utilities Commission
had the foresight to put the first natural gas power plant,
the very substation in my city of Stanton,
which produces 49.8 megawatts.
These types of plants are instrumental
in taking care of not only the overload,
but also emergency (indistinct).
I also found it was quite interesting
in the fact that the plant and the county and the state
took the liberty to extend the lines through my community
so that it would reach out and provide power from that plant
to my seven neighboring cities.
Taking it a step further, there was a third party Wpower
that just recently completed a 98 megawatt
battery backup peaker plants directly across the street
from library stations.
So I call them my twin towers of power
in the city of Stanton.
This battery backup, as you know,
is state of the art is sort of the first of its kind
to actually store the energy
and use it as it necessitates itself on off peak hours.
I wanna thank the CUP for helping me get
that in my community but also bringing it
to Southern California.
As far as my relationship goes, I'm very fortunate.
And I think this is one thing that Edison can learn from.
Edison is a is got a lot of hierarchy.
But what I find is the best way is to work through
your local government relations people.
I'm very blessed to have a young lady, Jessica Fernandez,
that works directly with my city and my neighboring cities.
I was just looking at my email.
I have gotten 62 messages from her
within the past several months and that's almost one a week.
And I think those what's interesting about that if she tries
to update me constantly on what's going on,
and she's able to forecast some of the workouts,
I think where they could improve on their system
is for the emergence interruptions of service.
Those are the unexpected ones
whose oftentimes catches them by surprise.
But it also catches my residents by surprise.
So as long as we know when the larger ones are coming,
and we can prepare for it, with the way in which we can keep
our refrigerator doors closed, we can prepare for that.
I think that's important.
They haven't proved that in my area.
And I think it's because unlike some of the others,
folks, people, you know, where their people are spread out
in larger areas, we're more in contact, urban area.
One of the other things too, is once you get it to the local
government affairs people, they can have
that personal relationship with local government,
and they can know what's going on.
So my comment is, is that I really appreciate you
having this meeting.
Because yes, I was affected by the PSPS
as they came in waves.
Fortunately, the city of Stanton
and my neighboring communities were able to do well with it,
because the CUPs foresight to go these two major
or this one major first peaker plant in Stanton,
and then also Edison, Southern California, and teaming up
with Wpower to get my new 98 megawatt battery backup power
plant that is already open and running here in my community.
Anyway, I wanna thank everyone for giving me
a chance to share my thoughts.
I appreciate all that you do, especially on our rates,
whether it's a water rates or electrical rates,
and I wish you all to be safe.
And again, thank you.
-: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Now we will turn to Congress.
Excuse me, Council Member Pam Walter of Acton.
Pam: Hello, thank you for taking my call.
This is Pam Walter, and I am a member
of the Acton Town Council
and a 32 year resident of rural (indistinct).
I would like to express my sincere hope that as a follow up
to this meeting, you will explore whether fcpe PSPS
threshold really do represent extreme wind
and humidity conditions.
Because my own personal experience indicates
that they do not.
There are three distribution circuits in Acton,
the pick, the shovel and the bootlegger.
I am on the shovel circuit, and SCE shuts off power
to my home, even when there is not even a slight breeze.
The shovel and bootlegger circuit was shut off
in every single PSPS event that SCE initiated
in LA County in 2020.
Last week, SCE conducted a PSPS event on the peak circuit
and even cut power to homes, which have underground
utilities and are located adjacent
to SCE substation inactive.
None of this makes sense to me.
I know that SCE has reported to you that is achieved some
reductions in their PSPS events this year
compared to last year.
But that is not consistent with actions experience.
Our local school district has already lost
more than a week of school, which makes this year
even worse than last year, if this continues
in the same manner.
Another problem is that because Acton is a desert,
our native vegetation is very low growing
and does not pose a significant wildfire hazard
from blowing branches.
So the wind threshold to me that they use in Acton
should reflect this and be based on structural winds.
That is not what SCE does.
In fact, SCE uses the same peak winds thresholds
of 31 miles per hour and 46 miles per hour just everywhere,
regardless of the local vegetation situation.
To me, this is wrong, and it should be stopped.
I'm asking on my own behalf and on behalf of my community.
Please, please ensure that SCE revises its shut off
threshold so that they actually represent extreme conditions
and not typical conditions in our community.
I have personally been shut off for a period of 36 hours,
and I am on a well and it's extremely difficult
to even function when you don't have water.
I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to me.
And I appreciate your time and consideration
for everything that needs to be done in the future
to help my community of Acton.
Thank you very much president and Commissioners.
-: Thank you, council member.
Now we're going to turn to your colleague,
Council Member Jeremiah (indistinct), also from Acton town.
Jeremiah: Hello, everyone.
(muffled speaking) Commissioners, no community has been
more affected by SCE's PSPS activities
in the community of Acton.
So we resinated of Acton are very grateful
that you convene this meeting today.
Today I'm speaking on behalf of the town council,
which I'm very fortunate to serve as president.
Back in town councils worked really hard over the last year
to bring light to the problems and the hardships
that Edison's PSPS events have posed to rural residents,
like myself and the rest of the folks in our community.
And our concerns extend well beyond
just notification errors.
For example, every time that Edison
shuts off power here Acton, our residents lose all
connection to the outside world.
That's from cable TV, where they can get news
to cell phone signal.
The only thing left is satellite.
And that's if you have a generator running.
Even if residents have a full solar and battery backup,
that doesn't really help because again, the internet's gone,
and the TV service for most residents is gone as well.
This proves the real life safety threat
and it manifested itself stream Edison's took fire
during fire during the PSPS event.
We had risen to two in the morning, as family members
that were totally unaware that fire was nearby
and nearly upon them.
And they basically went in the middle of the dark
to get them evacuated out.
And that's because we had no way to call them
they had no way to contact.
One of our towns biggest concerns is
that as I've never really considered the other public safety
risks that have caused by PSPS doesn't contemplate
that PSPS activities themselves can lead to wildfires
mentioned to fire before the TIG fire began
in a community with Jason Jackson.
And during a lengthy PSPS event that a resident decided
they were hungry in the making meal
and proceeded to use a smoker outside which was the start
of that fire because they couldn't use inside
facilities that they had.
And they couldn't even stop the fire from the start point
because they had no water because the well was turned off.
In 2019, the Maria fire was ignited by SCE equipment
that was sparked when Edison reenergize the line.
And if the fire was ignited in 2019, by a generator
that a homeowner was using during PSPS event.
These are all real, very real wildfire events
that have casual links to PSPS.
But aren't don't appear to be factored
into PSPS decision making by Edison.
This is clear from all their posts, events reports,
which only assume that PSPS will prevent wildfires
never contemplate the fact that PSPS can actually
lead to wildfires.
And based upon what I've highlighted,
we know that something is wrong.
When things we hope the Commission will direct (indistinct)
to properly way very real potential deadly consequences
of its PSPS activities and refrain from initiating PSPS
until the most extreme circumstances are (indistinct).
And you know, just to kind of double down on that.
I really think as residents we have an expectation
that power is delivered safely, that regardless of the wind,
it can't be delivered above ground safely
then the underground of whatever needs to happen.
It needs to happen.
Our residents have suffered through so many days of outages
and outages related to things they're supposed
to be hardening the grid, which doesn't appear to have
worked as 2020 seems to have been even worse
than the previous year.
So I thank you for your time.
Thank you for listening to our comments
and concerns and look forward to your outcome.
-: Thank you very much for participating.
Today, council member Owen.
Thank you.
We'll now turn to
Kevin Payne who is President and CEO of SoCal Edison.
And thank you, Mr. Payne and your colleagues from Edison
for sitting here we underestimated or overestimated
our timeframes, and I apologize to you.
It is now your turn.
So, Mr. Payne.
-: Thank you very much and good afternoon, President Batjer
Commissioners, Director Ghilarducci, Director Porter
and everybody attending today.
Really appreciate the feedback that we've gotten already
as you could probably see, I was furiously taking notes
and determined to follow up on everything here today.
I'm Kevin Payne, President and CEO,
Southern California Edison.
And I'm joined by several other leaders
who have responsibility for many of our PSPS activity.
So when we get to their pieces of the presentation,
they'll introduce themselves.
I also wanna thank you, President Batjer,
for convening this meeting and for the opportunity
to discuss the concerns that you raised
in January 19 letter.
We know how important these issues are
to everybody in attendance today.
And we will first and foremost, listen,
to ensure that we understand all of their perspectives
will be here until the last comment is made.
And we're gonna take each one of them to heart.
We also hope that today will be a valuable two way dialogue
where we can increase the understanding
of our PSPS practices and make them more transparent.
We do understand that there are lots of complexities here.
And there's lots of understanding that may be lacking.
And so we look forward to that.
Based on the dialogue here today,
and then subsequent meetings that we might hold
with some of the participants, we will formulate
our action plan to address each of the issue areas
that you outlined in your letter.
My opening comments today are going to provide
some perspective on our approach to managing the risk
of catastrophic wildfires, and how we use PSPS
as a last resort to protect the lives
and the property of the people that we serve.
When the weather in fire danger conditions demand it,
then several of our leaders will provide some more detailed
information related to each of the issue areas
that you described in your letter.
So again, we look forward to the dialogue.
2020 was a year of unimaginable tragedy
for many Californian.
Five of the six largest wildfires in California history
happened in 2020, and over 4 million acres were burned.
So these fires, they illustrate the nature and extent
of the fire risk threat that we're facing,
due to extreme weather conditions,
along with abundant and dry fields.
And until last week,
rainfalls in Central and Southern California were 50 to 75%,
below average, and numerous Santa Ana wind events
came in waves, requiring PSPS, our last resort
to be needed far more than any of us were like.
Having said that, I understand the impact on people
who've been affected by these PSPS events.
You can hear it in their voices.
I know they're angry and frustrated.
I've heard from a number of them directly.
And I know that particularly
with the COVID-19 pandemic on us.
That's it, this has impacted their lives in so many ways.
And I know that there's also no set of customer care
programs that can fully overcome the impacts
of being without power for extended periods.
But I also know what wildfire devastation looks like.
I've seen entire neighborhoods reduced to nothing
but concrete slabs and twisted metal.
I've seen people fleeing for their lives
and wondering what will be there when they come back.
We've all seen it and knowing what's at stake,
we have terribly difficult decisions to make.
But given that we have Edison also have the responsibility
to help our communities deal with this tragic situation
in every way that we reasonably can.
If there are areas where we have failed in that regard,
we will continue our improvements until we succeed.
Now ultimately, the more resilient grid
that we described in our wildfire mitigation plans,
will significantly reduce the risk of utility equipment
sparking catastrophic wildfires, and the need for PSPS.
From managing vegetation, to aerial and ground inspections
to advanced protection technologies to 1000s of miles
of covered conductor is a comprehensive plan
to address these issues.
Last year, we installed nearly 1000 miles covered conductor
and we are going to further accelerate
this progress in 2021.
Now let me turn my attention briefly to Edison's approach
to public safety power shut off.
Our actions are guided by four main objectives.
So first, protect public safety, of course.
Second, to keep the power on
for as many customers as possible.
Third, to communicate clearly and accurately.
And finally to minimize the impact of shut off
when they do have to occur through customer programs.
These objectives are attainable,
and we have made some good progress in some areas.
But in other areas, however, we're falling short,
and but we are absolutely committed to improving.
And still other areas there may be some misunderstandings
or ambiguities in the requirements and aligning there,
among all of us will be very helpful.
As context for the discussion today.
Let me just take a few minutes to explain
how our PSPS process works.
We start with forecasting.
Our meteorologists are looking at three to five days
and we activate our PSPS team
when the forecasted wind speeds,
humidity and fuel conditions
combined to cause significant wildfire risk.
At this point, we send our crews into the field,
sometimes hundreds of to do both ground and air patrols.
They inspect every mile the line in the area to look for
and repair any conditions that could make our lines
vulnerable to the coming weather.
In this initial period, we also confer with our public
safety partners to identify any known public safety issues.
In the most recent activation, for example,
we were concerned about the impact of power outages
on hospitals, patient care facilities,
and COVID vaccine storage and distribution providers.
So using both internal and calorie data,
we reached out to hundreds of facilities
to assess their readiness.
And we were able to switch some vulnerable facilities
to circuits outside the high fire risk area
in advance of the windstorm.
Between two days and one day out, we notify our customers
and confirm that our critical care customers
have received those notifications.
We also start planning customer care programs
by reading our community crew vehicles
and our COVID safe community resource centers.
And as we move into the period of concern,
our emergency operations usually include around 100 people,
each with a specific role in
our Incident Command System structure.
For each circuit, weather stations nearby provide wind speed
and relative humidity readings every 10 minutes.
Field crews who have been stationed in the most vulnerable
areas call in to report the actual conditions in the area,
including potential herick hazards such as flying debris.
Breach circuit that comes into the dangerous weather range,
engineers use a playbook that suggests ways to isolate
or switch segments and keep as many customers
energized as possible.
Once the energization decision is made,
notifications and communications are initiated.
So we're gonna talk a lot about notifications later today.
But I just want to acknowledge that these
have been a pain point.
And we are committed to making the improvements
that we've heard from some of the other speakers today.
In 2019, and 20, our post PSPS patrols found 60 incidents
of wind related damage that could have
potentially caused ignition.
And as I mentioned in my letter to you President Batjer,
there were likely many more that are no longer observable
after the wind event is over.
So even as I described this approach to you,
we know it's far from perfect.
President Batjer's letter refers to a number of pain points.
And many of these have been previously communicated
to us from our public safety partners,
our customers and our local communities.
So in some areas, we've already made improvements,
and in others we still have work to do.
We welcome the opportunity for open dialogue on each
of the items in your letter.
And you know, from my perspective,
they fall into four categories.
There are just areas where we need to do better.
I know I speak for the entire SCE team,
when I say that we're not a company that works
to just be good enough.
We are, you know, for example,
we're doing an end to end review now
of our communication process to identify near term fixes,
and some also longer also some longer term solutions
to data management and audit automation.
The second category is where the guidance
has required some interpretation,
and we were not aligned on expectations.
So a quick example in our reporting,
we were bundling contiguous events into a single report
if we didn't stand down our emergency operations
in between them.
So we're gonna change this practice,
and we will come into alignment with your expectations.
Third, there are areas in which we
believe we've been compliant,
but there has been unintended consequences.
And here, we may need your partnerships to change
or reinterpret the guidance
to improve the customer experience.
So one example of this is the cadence of notifications.
By starting our cadence three days out from every event,
and then providing seven types of notifications
every customer, we're sending multiple notifications
to each customer.
Uncertainty is also created when the weather systems
change rapidly, resulting in a series of notifications
that initiate and then reinitiate PSPS events.
So we saw much more complexity
with the weather patterns in 2020.
And we need your partnership to align notification
compliance with the feedback
and that we're receiving from customers about confusion.
The last category is where we think the issues
that you highlight are at least partially
the result of trade offs.
And an example here is the significant variance
between the number of advanced customer notifications
we send out, and the actual number
of customers we de-energize.
So we notify customers based on forecasts,
again, days ahead, so they have the opportunity
to prepare and they're aware, but then we do everything
that we can to de-energize as few as possible
based on real time conditions.
And as a last resort.
That said, however, we need to improve a lot in this area
so that we can notify your customers by using more
granular weather forecasting and better systems
to support that so we can narrow the gap there.
So in this particular case,
we've made a lot of good progress
in keeping as many customers as possible on
you know, with power, but it has,
it has created some confusion with notifications.
In closing, I wanna acknowledge that the extreme conditions
that came with this 2020 fire season,
including the unfortunate need for de-energization,
on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve,
were very difficult for customers.
And they revealed a number of areas where we can improve.
And while we know the actions
that we took were needed to protect public safety.
We also know there's more we can do to help our
customers understand the need for these measures,
how we make our PSPS decisions,
and how we will support them during future PSPS events.
So I look forward to the rest of the dialogue today.
And thank you again, President Batjer
for convening this meeting.
The other Edison speakers will offer some
detailed information and some of the issue areas
from your letter.
So unless we have any questions,
be happy to turn over to our next speaker.
That is Phil Herrington.
-: President Payne, thank you.
And I should have mentioned beforehand that
my fellow Commissioners and I may interrupt at times
with questions and not just hold all our questions
to the end of Edison's presentation.
So I apologize for not mentioning that earlier.
And I don't want us to be interrupted,
that we wanna make sure we get our questions
asked in a timely way.
To your point about needing a partnership with you,
of course, always yes.
Anything that we all can do to bring clarity,
in your communications with your customers, the ratepayers,
we must do.
We do have a workshop at the end of February,
where all of the utilities will be invited to speak
on PSPS guidelines.
And from that workshop, it will that information
will be fed into our proceeding in the PSPS guidelines,
of which Commissioner Ghilarducci
and I are Bagley Keene partners.
So certainly there will be an opportunity there.
And so moving forward, the next.
I'm not sure.
Let's see who will be speaking next from-
-: Yes, we'll have Phil Herrington,
our senior vice president of Transmission and Distribution,
speak next and President Batjer, yes.
You know, they'll be presenting some slides
and some information and you should all feel free
to interrupt anytime you have a question
we were expecting to staff.
-: Okay, thank you very much.
Mr. Herrington, are you available?
-: Yes, I am.
Can you hear me? -: Yes, we can.
-: Okay, hello, President Batjer.
Thank you, Kevin.
We do have a slide deck.
I believe that's going to be operated from the Commission.
There we go.
Thank you very much.
So well, first of all,
I want to thank the Commission, I wanna thank all
of the speakers we've heard from so far.
This is really critical feedback for us to have,
and for us to continue to improve our PSPS program.
As I go through my notes, I'll attempt to address
some of the questions we've heard.
I know there'll be other questions coming in.
So with that, I'd like to say as Kevin said,
our goal with PSPS is to use it as a last resort.
Now, as a company, we're in the business of keeping lights
on while keeping our customers safe.
Now, for us, that means wildfire prevention
is important part of our work year round.
In other words, well before PSPS events begin,
our prevention efforts are focused on reducing
the threat of wildfires across our territory.
So as we think about this, it's really gets
to some of the questions that Chief Porter was asking,
for example, things we've been working on this year,
and Kevin cited some of these as well,
by the end of 2020 (indistinct) models, a cup of conductor
was installed so far, total is around 1400 miles
in that time, we've been installing cover conductor,
and they significantly reduce the threat
of wildfire ignition.
And in 2021, we'll be targeting some of the areas,
many of the areas that are most impacted by PSPS.
Again, this is with an eye to reducing the risk
and impacts of PSPS.
We also reduce our need for PSPS by performing
I'll say hundreds,
hundreds of 1000s of hazard tree assessments,
and expanding reputation clearances and high fire areas.
I think (indistinct) Porter mentioned this as well.
We've had 1000s of fuses remote control devices.
So all in the air hole in the seam of really improving
our infrastructure and reducing the need for PSPS.
One other area we're doing very differently now
is increased inspection frequency
across all of our distribution
and transmission infrastructure in our high fire risk areas.
This is both on the ground and from the air,
and we've fixed the high priority findings
as quickly as we can.
We're more confident on the integrity of our system.
Again this- -: Phil.
I apologize, it's Kevin Payne interrupt
for just a quick second.
Would you ask the people that are changing the slides
to make sure that- -: Oh, I'm sorry.
-: Make sure that.
So it'll be helpful for people to know the information
on the slide as you're speaking to.
-: I think we should be on slide two, is my-
(muffled speaking)
-: I'm sorry.
You're right.
-: Robert, or (muffled speaking)
could you Mr. Hagen, could you please advance the slides?
It should be on slide two.
-: Thank you.
Robert: Slide deck is frozen.
I'll be right on.
-: Okay, sorry about that.
-: I'll just continue here if that's okay.
-: Yes, please continue.
-: Again, increased inspection frequency with little goal
of identifying hazards on allies,
and we can find and fix things in advance
of PSPS events occurring.
Now, again, we've also improved our situational awareness.
This is a this is an important area for us
to that end we have 166 wildfire cameras,
to give us and local fire authorities eyes
on almost all of our high fire risk areas.
And we can quickly spot fires, when they occur.
Again tells us in the PSPS environment for giving us
more confidence when we do identify fires,
how we can respond to those.
The other area and this is really important
1000 weather stations have been added to our circuits
over the last several years
to provide very localized weather data.
And appreciate Council member Pam Walter identified
that the air is still in her area,
whereas we have a PSPS shut off.
And the reason for that is,
when the circuits are very, very long
10s of miles up to 50 miles depending on the circuit.
It may very well be very windy in another place
in the circuit, and there can be a risk there.
So it's not just a local situation
where we're responding to.
So that's very important and also
live field observations
and Kevin mentioned in his discussion.
Now, while this work is the first step toward reducing
the need for PSPS.
The next step occurs when we actually see a PSPS event
in the offing.
So please turn to the next slide.
Okay.
So our mindset as we approach a weather event carries
with it significant fire risk,
is how do we protect the safety of our communities,
while keeping as many of our customers energized
as possible, in short to ensure this really
is an option of last resort.
And most cases (indistinct) high fire conditions
will wind up causing at least some level of operational
restrictions on our search to reduce ignition risk.
Now this may be limits on the work we can perform
in the areas or blocking automatic features we have
on our circuits so that we don't close them
if they switch open and re-energize the line
this damage could ultimately spark a fire.
Now in the more extreme cases, since what we're here today
to talk about, these conditions may call
for us to initiate a PSPS event.
Now our protocols are based on ensuring
this is a measure of last resort.
The question was raised earlier,
how do we come to these thresholds?
This is between work with our operations team,
our fire scientists, our risk management professionals,
our operations team, our customer focused team,
all looking at what is the risk of a fire spread
under circuits around circuits
and it gives rise to what these thresholds are.
Some of the thresholds 3146 is based on blowing.
I got to point out blow ins occur not only with vegetation,
but also with things like tarpaulins, Mylar balloons.
And if you can believe it, in our last event,
we actually had a trampoline blow in
to one of our power lines.
So many more things get lifted up in a high wind situations.
And 3146 is the National Weather Service Level
for when there's significant debris flow.
That's why that exists for some of our circuits.
Now at this point, we're making our own forecasts.
Again, everything we're doing is based on a forecast
at this point.
But our team then also works
with the Geographical Area Coordination Center or the GACC
to get a better understanding and general alignment
with our agency partners on our forecasts.
One of the things we're checking here is
what's the availability of firefighting resources,
there's a one to five scale.
And in situations where firefighting resources
are more scarce, it goes into our thinking
when we declare PSPS events.
And we also provide some courtesy soft touch notifications
to custom county and state emergency management officials
to provide notification but pending PSPS event.
And this occurs before we notify a broader group
of public safety partners.
And candidly, Director Ghilarducci may in some cases give
rise to some information that one party has another desert.
So that's area for improvement I think we can work on.
And we're updating our weather forecasts
at least twice a day.
And that's not just whether it's also our fuel report.
By the way, our fire potential index, it's a number we use.
San Diego Gas and Electric was the first one that
and we use their system to develop a number
which helps us understand the propensity
for the fire spread.
That changes very rapidly with wind and other factors.
So it's not a static number.
And the exact timing most impacted locations
will shift during an event
as forecasts come more into focus.
As Kevin mentioned, at this point,
we're patrolling the circuits in scope for a PSPS.
And we're finding and fixing problems
before the waste picks up where we can.
Kevin also mentioned the heading to 2020,
we develop individual and unique specific plans.
And we call these playbooks for every single circuit
in high fire risk area.
And from the lessons we learned in 2019,
we saw the benefit of having off the shelf plans
to divide our circuits in the segment,
or reduce the numbers of customers might get shut off.
Again, this is about minimizing the folks
that we do impact when we need to do (indistinct) PSPS.
Next slide, please.
Marybel: Mr. Herrington, this is Marybel
before you go on to the next slide.
-: Yes, President. -: What you just went through
just kind of bringing it down to a reality for a second.
So I'll use a particularly difficult day for a PSPS, which
Kevin mentioned earlier, and that is, on Thanksgiving Day,
you all would go going towards the guidelines
of three days out announcing PSPS
and I attended several of those.
Well, I read the report,
and during the PSPS has attended some of the meetings.
However, so we were under the understanding.
And I've double checked all this with Mark Ghilarducci
at the time, were under the understanding that
you were gonna pull, you were gonna start de-energizing
on Thanksgiving Day at 3PM.
And that was mostly the data was even 24 hours out
notification to your customers.
So I'm thinking all of this is going on
that you just described,
you're going through your protocols.
And suddenly at 9AM Thanksgiving morning,
you guys started to de-energize.
So am I assuming that that was
that the weather forecasting was off
that some of your circuit reviews (indistinct)?
What went wrong?
I mean, because that's one example of many.
But I think it's a very prominent one
'cause it's happened to be Thanksgiving Day,
and people spent more money on their on stocking up
with their food because it was Thanksgiving,
as they were preparing for their family gatherings.
And at 9AM they lost energy.
-: Thank you President Batjer.
Yes, I'm glad you pointed that out.
And again, we unfortunately, we did have
a high level of coincidence between holidays
and PSPS events.
And that's exactly what it is.
The wind especially kind of all the factors in weather
modeling is tough to predict.
And in certain local areas, we have seen very, very fast
onset of winds, it has caused us to adjust
some of our protocol and staffing even more
functions up earlier before events occur.
But that is something we're working on as we continue
to improve our weather modeling.
One of the things that we have in our weather model
that continues to be updated by real time information
is provided from our weather stations.
That's a continuing area of work we need to hone in on
but that is emergent weather patterns.
And that also gives rise to not only inaccurate start times,
but sometimes cases where we're unable to notify a customer
because they have not been forecasted
to see the conditions that would give rise
to PSPS event, but then they suddenly are.
So this has been very challenging for us to predict.
-: I can't recall how sorry to interrupt you.
I can't recall how widespread that was.
I'm pretty sure it was pretty widespread within
in the PSPS area of your servicers, sorry,
but I just wanted to use that as an example,
for your explanation because all of this points
to improvement but then we witnessed
some of these notification issues which I've mentioned
in my letter to you all, I mentioned in my opening remarks,
and I just bring up again today, right now,
I mean, as you're presenting, because I think it's critical
as you're stepping through some of your measures
that you take, before you do the last resort
and then de-energized and use PSPS.
So go ahead.
I'm sorry to interrupt, Phil.
-: No, no, no, thanks.
Thank you so much, President Batjer.
And that event, I believe we had around 100,000 customers
in the scope.
I don't recall how many were impacted
by the shift in the start time of the event.
So well- (muffled speaking)
-: Phil and President Batjer.
-: Commissioner Shiroma would like to ask a question, Phil.
-: Thank you.
And thank you for the slide deck, which I've looked at.
And I know on slide four, you're gonna talk about
better stakeholder understanding of PSPS decision points,
need to further refine the thresholds.
But it's still murky as to
how those decisions are made
to trigger the PSPS, the segmentation, and then also,
just overall, I think we've been hearing about a desire
for greater transparency, a greater look,
see behind the curtain into how that is done,
all geared towards those folks who are talking
to the communities, they will be able to explain clearly
to the communities affected, here's why you are gonna
be affected, or here's why you are being affected.
And just really clear concise communication.
And that in, Director Ghilarducci mentioned this,
even down to level of locations of community
resource centers, mobile vans
versus community resource centers,
and you have a wide territory.
But can you as you talk through these slides,
one more granularity on who makes those decisions,
and they've done about tabletop exercises.
But also, where are you to improve with the community
at large, especially these communities
who've called in today
towards getting that information out besides simply
customer by customer,
which your efficiency will get turned off?
So can you speak to that or through your presentation,
and to the next few slides.
-: Certainly Commissioner.
I will hit some of those (muffled speaking)
I will ask Jill Anderson to jump in
from the customer perspective as well.
As far as the decision making, this is where it gets
to our incident management team.
And maybe we could flip the next slide actually,
I think it's probably a good point to do that.
So as we get into an event, we have
two types of folks who are supporting these events,
that permanent staff that we brought on solely
for the purpose of PSPS events, that's a new thing,
and an incident management team.
The protocols and the really the methodology
for de-energizing circuits,
that all has been pre established in and myself and Kevin
and most of the folks on this call have been involved
in discussions of how we set those threshold.
There's a lot that goes into the methodology
in the protocol.
But in the events that's being handled
by our incident management team.
I think President Batjer's case of how quickly things
can change being this is an operational decision.
So we need to make sure the tools are there.
But also the authority to exercise
the discretion to de-energize is there as well.
Now sitting on top of the team,
there's an officer in charge,
that's an officer of the company,
who for certain situations may convene something
called a Crisis Management Council,
which are the senior most executives
of Southern California Edison.
But these are again, there's one of the things
I'll be covering here is that in our most recent event,
we looked at 700 individual segments.
And so think about that is 700 decision points,
and multiple decisions went into each one of those.
So the incident management team with input
from the field was making these,
I would say moment by moment decisions based on the protocol
that's been pre established early on.
So I think candidly, Commissioner, this is an area where
we would benefit from sitting down and having
a much more lengthy discussions to walk the Commissioner
and other stakeholders through,
how are we actually making the decisions?
What's the structure of the decision making?
What's the discretion that goes on there?
Because I think that would really help in the perspective
and I would address me and the questions
that were asked at the beginning of this presentation.
But Jill, maybe you can address some
of the customer questions below.
-: So sorry, (muffled speaking) something really quick,
I wanna make sure I don't lose one of the points
that Commissioner Shiroma made.
You know, the one of the points that she made was
we have a very complex process here that is designed
to try to optimize the situation,
keep people safe and keep as many people
on line as possible.
But we currently aren't really explaining
that in a transparent way to the people in the communities
that are being affected by it.
So I will take that away as an action item for us
to figure out how we might make what is a very complex
process that happens in very, very much in real time,
and put some of that into our communications
and our town hall meetings and the various things
so that we can better explain to customers
why they might be impacted on a given day.
We heard that from you.
I also heard from some of the elected officials,
both today and on other occasions.
So we'll take that as an action.
-: And I can answer the question about community resource
centers in the community vehicles.
So we do put together a schedule for those
as soon as we start to see the weather materializing.
And we're forecasting potential issues,
we start mobilizing on the customer side
and putting together a schedule and deployment plan.
We publish those on our website before the event
and then throughout the event, including all the hours
and the locations and it's actually located on a map.
So you can look at how close you are to your address.
And then we work with community partners
to try to get the word out.
And we've actually had a lot of success in 2020
using social media.
So we will go into the local next door channels
to promote each of the locations of those
community resource centers and vehicle.
-: Thank you, Jill.
Before I keep moving on, I will mention one other thing.
The incident commanders who are making decisions
are by and large executives of the company, in fact,
most of us are incident commander qualified.
And Eric idea to mark All right, we're standing
by our active intimate commanders and has been sitting in
for many of these PSPS events.
So I think what this really underscores is,
how critical PSPS is to us
and how critical making good decisions PSPS is to us,
we take real time information, and we have a structure
in place to really support that kind of decision making,
notwithstanding the fact that there's lots we can improve on
and that's what we're here to do.
So- -: Phil, I think
Commissioner (indistinct).
-: Thank you.
It's just a follow up question
on these 700 individual decisions.
And I know in the previous-
-: I'm sorry, this is-
(muffled speaking)
Let me introduce you.
This is Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
Thanks for joining us. -: Thank you, President Batjer.
Can you give us an update of where you're at
with establishing the secure portal
for the local governments, the tribes
and all these public safety partners
that I think was intended to facilitate
this communication about your,
again, this is a lot of decision points,
the need to communicate instantaneously.
And for these local partners to have this available.
Where are the circuits?
Where's the community centers,
all the information that this portal supports to provide?
Where are you at with that?
-: Oh, thank you, Commissioner.
I know we've made some substantial improvements
over the last year to our website
for that particular question.
I'll ask either Jill or Mark Albrecht,
if they have an answer that if not both,
we'll have to get back to you on that question.
-: Yeah, so I can start by saying that the website
which is publicly facing available to everyone,
not just a portal, you don't have to log in,
that provides the locations of all the SCEs
and the vehicles themselves.
And then it includes the area of the area
that's going to be impacted based on our current forecast.
-: And this is Mark Archer, I'll just add one more thing,
we do have something called a REST service
where it shares information with all the agencies
through the GIS system.
So that automatically goes to their website
as automatic push to them.
A lot of the communications are still manual at this point.
So but we're providing all the information that an agency
or a partner might need, especially for example,
some agencies like to know what, which customers,
which medical baseline or critical care customers
are in their area.
And during events, we provide that information also,
but at this point, it's fairly manual, except for
all the stuff on the maps and the websites are automated.
-: Thank you, (indistinct).
I'm gonna jump in.
Oh, and I'm sorry. -: Go ahead.
-: (muffled speaking) go ahead, but look, safer PG&E.
I myself, have access to a portal, the kind of portal
that Commissioner Guzman Aceves is talking about
that where I can actually easily see the sections
of the line that are being affected,
let alone the number of medical customers and so forth.
So I interrupted Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
I think that is level of granularity that's available
to local governments as large as an emergency
personnel and so forth.
Are you developing that kind of granularity?
-: So Commissioner Shiroma, this is Mark Payne.
We are developing that kind of level of granularity,
but we do not have it for private agencies.
For example, as Jill had mentioned,
the portal that we have now is for all the public
to see what's going on in their neighborhood.
And which circuits are under watch
which ones are de-energize.
Where are the CRC, is where the CCTVs?
All that information is public to all parties.
What we don't have yet as a portal, that's a private login
portal with a separate password and ID just for agencies,
that does not exist.
-: Right.
And this is the Steve Powell, me VP of operations.
So if you look at the welfare mitigation plans
that we're gonna be filing, coming up in the next couple
of weeks, as well as what we'll have
in our corrective action plan.
This is one area that absolutely will be addressed.
So Kevin mentioned earlier, but looking end to end
at our communications processable with customers.
So how do we fix the notification issues?
Listening to how do we simplify and make it understandable?
But also then what do we do on the agency side
and make available to you so that you have the information
that you need?
We recognize that there's other tools
that other utilities like PG&E may have.
We can learn from those.
But we also wanna work with you over the over
the coming weeks and months to figure out what would
the most digestible way to take put this together?
So that's work, work in progress,
and it'll be part of our corrective action plan
and our welfare mitigation plan.
-: And, Mark, I would like to just add to what you just said,
this is a (muffled speaking).
Director Ghilarducci mentioned in his remarks
that you all were late, tardy
difficulty I said it in my letter to you also
that some of your reports were collapsed into one
is a lot of information that.
Oh, yes, is not getting in a timely manner,
as well as your customers.
So let's not forget that the some of the things that
mark raised in his remarks that really need to be tidy up,
and they need a lot better information in a more real time
under their guidelines, their timeliness to them as well.
So you seem like you have all this information
that it's not getting to us, and more importantly
to OES in the manner and timeliness
manner and timeliness that is needed.
So just going back to his remarks,
I didn't mean to interrupt you push around my
but your point was well taken as well.
-: President Batjer, Mrs. Shiroma, thank you.
I think Kevin said it earlier.
And Steve highlighted what's in our plans.
These are definitely areas
and Commissioner Ghilarducci comments
were taking to heart Don Degler is also supporting us.
He says our business resiliency team.
This is an area for improvement.
And we will make improvements.
We know we can do better there.
I think before we move here, the one thing
I do wanna point out because I think this gets to
we've talked a little bit about not only sectionalize.
But this is a key distinction.
And it gives rise to the double edged sword, if you will,
more precise decision making about standardization.
This is using real time information from the weather station
as well as the folks that we have in the field.
If we look on our largest event is December 4th this year,
there were over 230,000 customers who were in scope
for a PSPS as the event approached,
and given our ability to sectionalize,
but also not de-energized based on a forecast based
on what we actually saw in the field.
We ended up de-energizing around 78,000 customers.
Still a very, very large number.
And for those 78,000 customers, particularly those
who that wasn't their first, that's a big deal.
There's a hardship for them.
But it also does speak to some of the things that we've done
to reduce the footprint and impact of PSPS.
So lastly, Restoration Times is another one,
obviously not having it in the first place would be ideal,
that when we do have PSPS events,
we're committed to restoring power as quickly as we can.
We've seen the duration of overall PSPS events
compared to 2019 and 2020 decrease by around 30%.
Whether it's a factor, candidly but so is
the fact that we put our teams in the field very early
and move aggressively to restore circuits
as quickly as we can.
And the segmentation we've done earlier also means
that we can more quickly bring circuits up
and re-energize our customers.
The next slide please.
So, we've talked about areas where we strongly believe
we can improve.
Now we've made a lot of progress as we look at
how we've evolved the program over three years,
we haven't made enough progress, we need to do more
PSPS is a hardship.
It's not an inconvenience, it's a hardship.
Our job is to protect the public.
And also keep the lights on.
And I think as professionals in the utility business,
we have all spent our career with measurements and metrics
and a commitment to supply reliable power.
So PSPS is absolutely something we take seriously
and also is contrary to how we've really operated
for most of our careers, as we did in 2019.
And this forum is going to be very helpful for us
to advance that we're looking aggressively
at what we did in 2020.
And identifying areas we can improve.
Now, we need to do a better job of helping our stakeholders
understand how we're also making PSPS decisions.
I think the transparencies coming through
very clearly to us.
So these are the things we're committed to resolve.
Partnering with our stakeholders and local officials,
as we accelerate our grant hardening,
that's gonna be big in certain areas
that have been hit with PSPS want to make sure people
understand what we're doing and what impact it will have,
as we harden our grid.
To refine our thresholds based on grid hardening,
but also additional data and things you've learned about,
say fuel on the ground, and conditions as we continue
to learn more and more about our system.
And lastly, I think loud and clear.
We've committed to this, we have worked carefully
and diligently with all of our major stakeholders, Cal OES,
the Commission, local state officials,
and tribal governments, we need to do more in Baltimore,
we will provide a better understanding of the decision
making before and during events,
because I think that's really important.
Kevin noted, there are some areas that I think give rise
to gaps, that might be gaps in understanding
where we need some help in getting greater clarity,
but also in providing greater clarity
to how we're making our decisions,
I think will go a long way towards improving
how we're administering PSPS and actually get us
in the position to continue to do less and less
of it as we move forward with hardening our grid.
So with that, happy to answer any more questions.
But we're ready to transition over to Jill Anderson
to talk about more of the customer care aspects
of our PSPS program.
-: Okay, thanks.
So that sounds great.
Again, we'll be asking questions along the way.
So apologize for the interruption.
Thank you. -: No problem.
So why don't we start with the next slide.
And I wanna address what we're doing to improve
the notifications we do for our customers.
And the Commission has rightly pointed out
that we definitely have some opportunities there to improve.
And we've heard that from our customers.
And for many of the speakers earlier today,
I'm also gonna talk about how we're reaching
our most vulnerable customers.
So looking forward to hearing more feedback
from you on that.
You know, started out I want to acknowledge
that we have been making a lot of improvements
year over year on our customer facing systems.
The images here are a screenshot of the 2019 website,
which was a, you know, static listing of service
to now the 2020 website.
And this is public facing and updated throughout events.
So you can see visually where there are areas of concern,
and then very much helpful for our customers.
We take a lot of feedback from customers throughout
the events and after the events in order to evaluate
where do we need to prioritize more enhancements,
what's working in what's not working.
And we know notifications is one of the areas
where we need to make some changes.
You know, currently, our processes,
we've got 72, 48, 24 hour notices,
customers get updates during the event,
they get an imminent de-energization notice,
a de-energization notice, they get warnings,
you know might be through their phone or text or email.
And, you know, all of this is multiple opportunities
and ways for us to reach the customer.
But we also hear that some of the communications
are creating some confusion.
And Kevin said it in his remarks, you know,
we might have too many messages or we might have
not enough messages and we are analyzing all of those gaps.
And on the next slide, if we could go to slide six,
I'll talk about what we're doing for each one of those.
So I wanna start with the issue around
potential confusing messages.
We're really looking into the root cause
of what is creating confusion.
It might be too many notices or also that customers
are receiving notices that are accurate,
but they aren't relevant to the circuit
that customer is served by.
So we're doing an end to end review of those process
and looking at should we modify the number of notices
that go out during an event?
You know, it's everything I just listed
could be seven notices.
And in an event additionally, if we have back to back,
which we had seen in December,
a customer might be getting an all clear notice
from one event, and then getting a warning notice
in the same day for the next event,
and so that very much we have heard from customers
has been creating confusion.
On inaccurate messages and your letter pointed out
this concern, and we've heard this from customers as well.
One issue is that we've been using new channels
and new approaches to reach customers.
So we have this code alerts, for example.
And that's a tool that we've been using
to try to reach transient populations.
But a customer might be receiving a zip code alert,
because there is a circuit in their zip code
that is being de-energized.
But it might not be the circuit that they live on.
And so we hear from customers about that.
We've been updating the way we describe the
different alerts on our website.
And we've always been continuing to look for opportunities
to help our customers switch, maybe from the zip code alerts
to a more targeted alert that is specific to their address.
Another issue is in we'll call it notification fatigue,
where in and you mentioned it in the very beginning
on the number of customers that receive a warning
versus the number of customers that are de-energized.
And I think as Phil and Kevin have said,
you know, our priority is to keep the power on
wherever we can do that and maintain public safety.
But we absolutely understand that receiving a warning notice
that doesn't result in de-energization
is very disruptive for customers,
they might be making plans or taking actions
and then they weren't necessary
because they didn't lose power.
So the way we're addressing this is a couple
of things we're doing.
First, Phil talked about improving our forecasting ability,
increasing the number of weather stations that we use,
that's gonna help us get more targeted,
even in those earlier, you know, 48, 24 hour notices.
Kevin made the point though, that we make the warning notice
based on forecast and the de-energization notice
based on actual.
So we're always gonna have some delta
between who we warn and who we de-energize,
but to make sure that we can keep making
that as small as possible.
And advancement that we're working on now
is improving both the accuracy
and the speed when we're going through
in the middle of an event.
So that we can use automation and help make sure
that we're only noticing customers that are on the specific
segments that are gonna be de-energized when we are able
to zero in and really target that PSPS event.
The third gap that was noted in the letter
that we've heard from other speakers today is
when customers don't receive any notice at all.
Now that might be caused by a sudden change in weather
that isn't yet captured in our forecast.
We've also had it happen where the scale of the event
was something that because we do still rely on some manual
processes that we're updating,
we might not be able to get all the notices out
before we see a public safety imperative to de-energize.
But a third cause of this, that's something
that's definitely solvable and we're working on is there's,
there's many customers, we just don't have contact
information for or don't have accurate
contact information for.
So we are working proactively to capture
that latest contact information every time
we have a touch point with customers.
And you know, we're working collaboratively
with our PSPS working group and the advisory board on all
of these topics and improvements to these notifications.
-: I would- -: I wanna talk-
-: Excuse me Jill.
I would add to that list of people
that you need to work with.
Because you might have some customers that are hard to reach
in terms of communications, I'm hoping you have a rich
relationship with the community based organizations
that can also help.
And they're usually very good trusted communicators
with certain populations in your community
in your service area.
So I hope you add those to the list because I think
that is indeed some and and this isn't one and done.
As you well know, it's a contract that every touchpoint you
have, you've got to because people are very mobile society.
People move, people's jobs they have they lose, they
have to move into a relative's home, et cetera, et cetera.
So it's an (indistinct) effort.
So thank you, but I would definitely
I know that the community based organizations
can be very helpful as well getting that word out.
I don't think we have a notice
I'm talking about contact good contact information.
-: Correct, yep.
Thank you.
I wanna talk a little bit more kind of pulling on
that on though how we're better reaching
our most vulnerable customers.
So let's go to the next slide.
Here, I think it's slide seven.
And we know that reaching the most vulnerable customers
is a priority for the Commission.
And it is absolutely a priority for us as well.
This is another area where we have made some progress.
And we have some work that's already underway,
that I wanna share with you.
Talking first about confirming that we've delivered notices,
especially to our most vulnerable customers,
we've got a very comprehensive process
that we use now making sure that we've reached
all of our critical care customer population.
Those are a subset of medical baseline
that rely on devices for at least two hours,
were confirming now at a rate of about 96% per event.
And we track that very closely.
And that includes that sometimes we have to send people out
to do door knocks in order to reach a customer
when all the other calls and other
outreach we've done isn't successful.
And so to us, that starts with the very most vulnerable
of the vulnerable population.
But we are not yet reaching all of medical baseline,
and you've pointed that out to us.
And for us, that's an increase of a population right now,
that's about 5000 customers in high fire risk area
going up to 28,000 customers,
that's all the medical baseline in these areas.
So we are planning to expand that delivery confirmation.
We know it's gonna require some additional resources,
you know, it's a five times increase in this population
that we're trying to reach.
So we intend to put forward our recommendation
in our February, 12, filing.
And the next section is about sharing information
with public interviews.
Female: Jill for a second.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen and has a question
and I may have one too.
Commissioner. -: Okay.
-: Thank you, (indistinct) Jill.
So you're going to go from 5000 to 28,000.
-: I just lost your audio, I'm sorry, can repeat it.
-: I was asking when do you hope to be able to confirm
that all of your medical baseline customers
received notice in the same way that you can currently,
you're currently confirming critical care customers?
What's your timeframe for doing that?
-: So I don't have an answer for you today.
But it is something we intend to include
in our filing in two or three weeks.
You know, the resources issue is something that we have
to evaluate and make sure that we're able to deploy
and we're looking at the models that other utilities use
as well, whether there are partnerships we can do
with third parties who can help us during an event.
-: PG&E, actually, this is one area
that they've improved upon.
So when you look other best practices,
and I would never I would not call them the best yet.
But they don't do the subset of the critical pair under
medical baseline as you as you described, Jill.
So and yes, they use a lot of community based organizations
to assist them to answer your questions.
So I think there's a lot of room for improvement there
and a lot of examples that you all can grab ahold of.
-: Yeah, I agree.
And we do work closely with them to compare notes.
So I wanna focus on the enrollment here,
'cause I have on the slide about sharing information.
But I think we did cover that quite a bit.
And we'll continue to expand on that in our filing.
Enrollment is something that the Commissioner
also brought up, you know, we need to reach all
of these vulnerable customers.
But we have to make sure we have them identified
in order to know if we're reaching them or not.
We have seen some improvement here.
In 2020, I think we had an improvement
of 14% enrollment in medical baseline,
we've been making the enrollment process simpler.
We've done it online, now we're making electronic signature
available, each step we see reduces the friction
and increases enrollment.
And other things that we are working on now
is new partnerships with medical facilities
who are themselves maybe identifying
who needs medical assistance, home health care,
social workers and continuing to coordinate
with local government.
And I think, you know, community based organizations
is an opportunity here
as well as with the contact information.
So with that, I'll go to my last slide,
which is to- -: Excuse me, Jill, this is.
(muffled speaking)
Yeah, I just want you to go back again.
And I'm just I thought you were already ordered
to put this information on the secure portal
for the local governments and public safety agencies.
And your bullet says evaluating an online portal
for easier access.
But this was like one of the major lessons learned
after a first year that
local governments can look at this information,
not only for identification for their purposes,
but for them to be able to say you're missing
a subset or you're missing, you know, one customer.
And so I guess I heard Mark,
say something a little different in terms of,
can you just clarify, maybe Kevin using-
(faintly speaking)
-: Yeah, I can take this one.
-: Yeah. -: Yeah, thank you,
Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
So we do provide this information is just not through
a web portal.
So we do provide all the medical baseline
customer information and our critical care customer
information to any of the local governments
or government agencies during events.
What we haven't done is automated this.
So this usually comes through either
a file transfer from us to the agencies,
or it comes from other ways that we can keep this
information, secure and private.
But what is it we don't have is there's
just not a login portal to it.
So they are getting all the information,
there's just not a login portal for them at this point.
-: Okay.
And when will that be in place?
-: We'll have that answer when we submit
the February response.
And then we also are working with our partners
to learn more about how they're done.
So I don't have a data when we'll have it up.
But it'll be this year.
-: We'll make sure it's in our action plan
for the for February, 12.
-: Okay, thank you. -: Okay, so the last section
is also addressing something that we've heard and feedback
from the letter and from you hear during our discussion
today about how we're helping customers with resiliency.
And I think, as you heard from Phil,
we were working on hardening the grid,
minimizing our use of PSPS.
But that's a multiple year endeavor, we need to make sure
that we're helping our customers build resiliency
at home and in their communities.
And so here, start by talking about
what we're doing with the critical care battery program.
This is free batteries to our most vulnerable population.
It's targeted about 2500, in the high fire risk area,
in the beginning of 2021, we saw a low rate of adoption.
And we've been able to scale our partnerships
with our community outreach partners.
And we finished the year with about a third of the customers
that we were targeting having batteries installed.
And we've continued to advance that as we turned into 2021,
we've also confirmed that we are gonna expand this now
to all medical baseline customers that are eligible
in the high fire risk area.
We're learning from our lessons in 2020,
about what kind of outreach was successful
and what outreach wasn't successful,
with a goal of reaching significantly more customers
this year between three and 4000 customers this year,
going into the 2021 season.
The other is that there's a picture of the battery there
on the slide.
You know, we've talked a little bit about this-
Female: Commissioner Rechtschaffen has a question
on the batteries.
-: I don't wanna interrupt till the middle of our sentence.
So please finish the sentence.
And I'll ask you.
-: Go ahead.
-: No, no, please go ahead and then talk
about your additional rebates for portable power.
That's the next item in your slide is that.
Jill: Yes, that's actually, I think responsive
to some of the feedback that we heard from the speakers
earlier that another pain point for customers
when they lose power is that they lose
their connectivity with communications.
And so we have been pushing with customers,
rebates for small portable batteries in their home,
as all you know, up to of course,
we have large rebates for whole home batteries,
and even rebates for generators to try to help customers
with backing up the devices in your home
that are most critical.
So that during a power outage,
they can still have connectivity.
-: I just wanna pin down exactly what you have
and what you're doing.
Because in August,
I think Kevin and I had a dialogue back and forth
about the number of batteries that you had provided
to your critical care customers
versus the goal that Edison had.
And I think at that point, Kevin said that
you only about 20% of where you want it to be
and a lot of it was because of supply constraints
due to COVID and other factors.
I heard you just say, lower adoption rates
than you anticipated.
I don't know what that refers to.
But can you tell me how many batteries
or other backup system, backup power systems
do you have right now for your critical care
and medical baseline customers,
how much do you have right now?
And then how many more you need to meet the goals
that you've set for yourself
and when you anticipate getting to those goals?
-: So specific on the critical care backup battery program
that we launched last year, we have over 830 customers
currently enrolled, most of them have the batteries
installed, or they have a scheduled date
for when the batteries will be installed.
And so that was from about July of last year
to the end of the year, we reached 830 customers.
And then this year, our goal is to increase
that to three or 4000 customers expanding
the eligible population to include medical baseline
that our income qualifies.
I don't have the numbers right off my head here on
how many rebates have been used.
But we do track that as well.
And so maybe, as we continue the conversation,
I can look that up for you and get that before
the end of here.
But we track how many rebates are being used
both for home backup power, or well water backup power,
which is an additional new rebate
that we launched last year.
And then SGIP, which is a bigger program,
you know, much beyond PSPS.
We saw 400% increase in SGIP in 2020 for backup power,
we have over 2000 customers that have come to use
the equity and resiliency additional incentive for SGIP.
And we you know, we now have, I think a recent decision
that will allow us to market an upfront rebate
for SGIP, which we think will help
get more batteries deployed with customers.
-: Yes, thank you.
And the three to 4000 critical care customers
how is the universe defined is that based on the circuits
where there's a greatest propensity for shut offs
out of your whole critical care, customer base?
-: So the target now for three to 4000 will include
also medical baseline, so not only the narrower definition
that we use for critical care,
they need to be in a high fire risk area,
and they need to have income qualified to get the fully,
you know, full cost free battery.
-: So right now you have you provided 830 backup systems.
And your goal is to provide three to 4000
to either critical care,
or low income medical baseline in high fire threat areas.
-: Yes. -: Is that right?
So what ended the second bullet you have 12,000
eligible medical baseline customers, what does that refer?
-: So that's the population we're gonna mark it to.
And based on what we've learned this year,
you know, making a goal of reaching 100% of who you go out
to is is not feasible.
So our goal is to get at least a third
of those or more who's eligible
as an income qualified-
-: So there are 12,000 medical baseline of critical care
customers in the high fire areas
and your goal is to reach a third of them?
Or your expectation is you reach a third of them
and what about the rest of them?
-: That's just our 2021 goals.
So we would continue to improve and learn you know,
as we see what works for reaching customers
to continue to program in future years.
-: Okay, and then one final question, President Batjer.
And is that the the backup equipment
for those three to 4000 are those the full scale batteries
like is provided under SGIP or their equivalent?
Are they smaller batteries like the Yeti batteries
that will power one or two appliances for several hours
or a couple of days or is it a combination?
-: It's the smaller batteries like the one
excuse me that you see pictured there.
And that's Yeti is one of the main manufacturers.
-: Jill, can I jumped in for a sec here
to their Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
We do do the Yeti batteries,
but we do three or four versions of them.
And we actually do the customers
to get what their medical devices are.
And we size that so that we can cover 24 hours of power.
So if they have very small electrical medical equipment,
then we'll give them a small battery, smaller battery,
if they have more medical equipment, we'll try to size it
to make sure that we can cover
a full 24 hours without power.
-: An important point on this is that the customers have
to want it you know, I think we went into the program
thinking it's a free battery.
I mean the retail value of these are,
you know could be $3,000 and many customers
who were successful with are excited and grateful.
But there are many customers who don't
want to hear from us, who don't want a battery.
So we can never get to 100%.
But we certainly
have an opportunity to do better than we did in 2020.
-: Well, I fully understand that I recognize the efforts
are not always successful.
At the same time we hear from people coming
from the other perspective, we have an SGIP,
the program, you mentioned,
our SGIP program is way over subscribed.
And there's demand and we hear from customers
who there's unmet demand, we hear from customers who say,
SGIP is all filled up, and I need backup power.
I'm not getting it from utilities.
So there are lots of people who still do want
the backup power and services that are provided.
-: Yeah.
-: This is Director (indistinct).
Do you mind if I can just jump in here real quick.
Because I'm perplexed by this discussion.
I'm a little frustrated, I will tell you.
You know, and I never thought I'd say this.
But, you know, maybe you looked at PG&E
because of what I would not necessarily
consider best practice.
But (faintly speaking) this area, you know, they've achieved
a much broader penetration of this particular area,
they partnered with NGOs and representative groups,
they granted funds.
I'm frustrated, because these are all goals
you're making for 2020, 2021.
Wow, I'm really excited you reach 800 people.
That's phenomenal.
In the service territory, this massive and, you know,
these are items, whether it's all the previous stuff about
ramping up your operations, your predictive analysis,
your coordination and communication with the state.
In this case, your ability to achieve the needs
for your medical baseline and you folks who access
and functional needs.
These are all items to do to market points
that were lessons learned in the first year,
you know, the state has invested well over $100 million
that we've already pushed out to local governments
and special districts and other entities,
that's action, that's making that happen
to be able to deal with the consequences of PSPSs.
And so I'm just a little frustrating,
because these are items that we have been meeting
with utilities for years now, regularly,
going over all of these things,
setting metrics in all of these areas,
and expecting way in advance of where
we're gonna be talking about now.
And I'm just perplexed by it,
because Southern California Edison is far more on top of it,
than this, quite frankly, in my opinion.
This is a great organization.
And I just wonder how much of a focus this has been to you.
If we're now 2021 and we're looking at 2021 and 2022
is trying to make this thing come together.
This is what have been done two years ago, quite frankly.
So behind the power curve.
And I just would say we need to really step it up here,
folks, because, you know, the climate,
the weather conditions, the events we're seeing,
really precipitate the need to harden the network,
hardening infrastructure, minimize the PSPS,
and making sure that our most vulnerable communities,
community members are taken care of during these cases.
So I it's sort of a soapbox here.
But I'm frustrated, because we've been talking
about this now for years.
And where we're at today, and this discussion is not good.
-: Yeah, I appreciate that.
And I, what I would add is that it,
we, Mark and I are directly involved in this program,
and we get reports on it every week,
we're following up on how successful we are
with deploying batteries to these customers.
We have, sometimes we're reaching out to the same customers
six or seven times to try to get feedback from them
and to get, you know, interest in this program.
So it's not something that we take lightly either.
And we are committed to improving I'm sorry, Kevin,
I think I- -: No, but I was just gonna
say Director Ghilarducci thanks for those comments.
You know, when we go back, and we'll take that to heart
look at what we gonna do in terms of what the
interaction plans will revisit this.
I think the comments about using NGOs and other ways
we've had other experiences over time
where for whatever reason, the contact between us
and the customer isn't the best way to reach them
and that there may be other ways that we can do it.
So we'll take your comments to heart
and look for ways of accelerating this
and making much quicker progress
and we'll report back on that in our action plan.
Thanks for the feedback.
-: And Jill and Kevin, I underscore what
both myself Commissioner Rechtschaffen and and Mark said,
I was very chagrined I was going to bring it up.
So I'm glad that you all did, because the progress
that you said you were gonna make in September,
in your response to our August meeting,
and what you made, and what you had hoped to do,
are at odds.
And I think I said in my opening remarks,
there's all too often we're going to,
we're planning to, we're considering.
And what I also said is results is what matters,
not the planning.
And I agree with Mark and my fellow Commissioners,
we bring up batteries all the time on the calls
will be reported to you, Kevin, when I'm on your calls,
I bring up where are you on the batteries?
What about the energy distributions?
I do the same thing with PG&E.
So it's a real concern of ours.
And we get public comments every one of our
and I assure your folks listen in
but every one of our Commission meetings, there are
medical baseline customers who are frustrated
that they cannot get through, they cannot get batteries,
whether it's the SGIP is oversubscribed,
or they can't hook into your programs.
But it's a real pain point
to use your expression Kevin for us.
And we are a regulator.
So we are regulating you.
And we need you to step up, as Mark just said.
So thank you.
I think we've said enough, but still.
-: Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you all for the feedback.
We will see how fast we can accelerate progress here.
-: I think with this, we should turn it over to Steve.
-: Sure.
Thanks, Jill.
Go ahead and slip over the next slide, please.
So good afternoon.
I'm Steve Powell depicted Vice President of Operations
at Southern California Edison.
I think here we're going to be retreading some ground
that we've already covered.
You know, starting from Director Ghilarducci comments
at the beginning, I hear you bottom line needs improvement.
Our PSPS program is deployed, as we all talked about
to prevent wildfires and protect our customers.
But we recognize that it can create hardship
or hazards well beyond just inconvenience and hardship
if we don't deploy it, together with full awareness
of the situation, so that awareness requires
that we have really good partnership.
As we execute our PSPS program,
we need that coordination across multiple state,
local and tribal agencies,
plus, with our public safety partners.
We need to communicate early and often
and so that we can support the safe deployment of PSPS.
And that coordination starts early in the fire season.
So as soon as we file our wealth,
wildfire mitigation plans in February,
we're reaching out to local governments
community associations, to educate them on our plans
for great hardening things we're gonna do to prepare
for the PSPS events as well as
to reduce their impact on the local community.
We're meeting on a regular basis with our public
safety partners to verify lists of critical facilities.
And, we provide detailed information
to our critical infrastructure providers
on how their facilities might be impacted
if we end up with PSPS events,
as well as information on how they've been impacted before.
Think how we manage our events is important.
We do it as an emergency event
using the incident command structure to help us align
with our emergency management functions across the state.
In addition to the dedicated team,
we've already talked about, we have a duty manager
that's always available
for issue escalation with our partners.
We're also evaluating making representatives available
to be physically present at the state Operations Center
to create a better cohesion.
We have the daily coordination calls
that I know were brought up in for the ambassadors letter.
You know, typically they start two days before the period
of concern in an event and are conducted throughout
the duration of the event.
We have the statewide executive briefing that consists
of representatives from Cal OES, CAL FIRE, the PUC
and the Governor's office.
Separately, we have a county operational briefing
typically attended by the representatives of the offices
of emergency management for the counties,
and a critical infrastructure briefing for water,
wastewater and telecom providers.
So these tailored coordination calls are an efficient way,
but really important to be able to communicate
and really get the feedback,
especially when we're in the events.
So that's the stuff that we're doing maybe flip
over the next slide, please.
I say clearly, feedback, we've gotten the letter
feedback we heard at the beginning
and have talked about here.
We fell short of expectations in 2020.
Some of those things that have been raised
have already been fixed.
I mean, the three coordination calls that I described.
You know, throughout the year,
we had to adjust the attendees separating executive
from operational so that we could get the right folks
in engage in getting the right information.
And so we've achieved,
we've worked with the California State Warning Center
to achieve more effective calls.
We didn't at some point,
we didn't have the right contact information for some of the
partners that we need to be working with throughout 2020.
And we've gone and corrected that.
And we've now got quarterly updates
to our emergency contacts and our attendee lists.
We're in the process of fixing others.
I think we've already talked about in Director Ghilarducci
raised, you know, we've had challenges getting
our event notifications submitted in a timely manner.
I think particularly as we adapted to the new
and evolving requirements there that we've had to adjust,
adjust our operations to be able to fill those effectively,
so that we can provide the standard information
that you're getting across all the utilities.
And we've you know, we haven't adapted quickly enough,
but we're working on it.
So in our most recent January event, you know,
we call it an advanced to the state Warning Center
to talk about how are we going to provide these reports
on timely basis, given the multiple periods
of concern that we saw coming.
We also have a working session next week
with the state Warning Center to discuss those forums,
and procedural challenges and how we clean those up.
Our public safety partners, they have a number
of opportunities to provide feedback
to us on our performance after events.
We've got the after action reviews,
public comments to our post event reports
working groups and advisory groups.
So there's plenty of opportunities to provide for us
to collect feedback and provide information.
I think we need to be focused,
though on how do we refine and streamline those,
because clearly, they're not always
hitting the market today.
Separately, the communities that have raised issues today,
so we have communities have been frequently impacted
by during our 2020 and our 2019 PSPS events,
like Acton, Agua Dulce and Simi Valley.
We've in terms of communicating with them,
we've held nine community meetings throughout 2020,
leading up to the year to share our approach to prepare
and listen to the concerns heading into the year.
We're gonna be conducting nine more in the coming months.
So we can go and collect feedback
and share more community specific information.
I think the what we've learned
and what we've been working on is how do we get down
to talk about the circuits and the impacts of the individual
community and what's gonna be changing.
And when they can expect to see that change coming.
Over the past couple of years, we've stood up
a number of different channels to coordinate efforts
across all these groups and collect the feedback,
you know, not like now it's time we've got to fine tune,
make it efficient, and most importantly,
ensure that we're meeting the needs of our partners
because we can't execute PSPS and keep our community safe
if we don't have partnership
that involves real good coordination.
Next slide, please.
Finally, let me just address the post event report.
So important requirement that we share information
about the execution of our events.
Transparency and accuracy in reporting is really important.
It's our goal, we're committed to working
with the Commission to make sure
that we're meeting your expectations for the 2021 report.
They're both group posts report events,
as you've mentioned, contain a lot of information.
He's combining information on our site
from 15 different sources and systems.
Sometimes there's more than 300 pages.
And there's a lot of manual operations pulling together.
Man: Can I jumped into a question that.
-: Yeah. -: Should I pause
for a question was somebody want to jump in?
-: Sometimes it's hard to hear.
Go right ahead. -: It's hard to hear
up just a little bit,
but do a Commissioner Guzman Aceves-
-: You have to dial up.
-: I don't think he's connected right now.
-: Okay.
Okay. -: I think he lost his audio.
-: Can you hear us?
-: Can anybody hear me? -: I can hear you, Mark.
Yeah.
-: No? -: I can't hear you.
-: Steve, we can hear you
but seemed like you couldn't hear us.
-: Yeah, well, I'll text them. -: Oh, why don't we just go
Commissioner Guzman Aceves did you have a question
you want to Steve? -: Yeah.
Well, maybe while I re-asking here, but I was
just going back to a representative from Acton
mentioned that they lost all telecommunications.
Now the cable is a bit of a separate situation right now
as they're still working on that
but cell service in particular.
And I wanted to see if he could walk through
or maybe some of you can walk through.
What went wrong there?
Why is it?
How is it still not fixed that we can you can communicate
with the local providers to let them know?
According to your list here,
you're letting them know what's happening
with (indistinct) warning or coordinating with them.
Although you don't have the portal up,
you're doing some sort of paper communication on this.
How's it still possible if there isn't a cell service?
Where's the, you know, when we talk to the carriers,
they're saying, they're not getting
notifications, et cetera.
So what's the story there?
And is that something particular that you're gonna be
doing a corrective action around?
Because the worst case scenario is that we have,
what we did have that summer, is we have a PSPS.
And we have overlapping wildfires,
where people need to know to evacuate.
And this fundamental communication
with critical public safety partners,
to total communication providers is (muffled speaking)
I mean, the fact that Acton was all communication
is really concerning.
What is the problem there?
-: Jill, are you the best one to answer that question
about our work with the telecom providers?
-: Sure.
So looking for the mute.
So, you know, I think it starts with making sure that the
telecom providers have resiliency at their locations.
And I know that that's an ongoing effort
and investment for them.
Part of the challenges and things we've heard from them is,
especially in a wide scale event, you know,
it's hard for them to know where and be able
to deploy mobile generators fast enough to be ready,
if the circuit that's serving that generator
is going to be de-energized.
But we have been working with them to make sure
that we can focus their longer term investment strategies
in deploying permanent backup generation in the locations
that we know are most vulnerable for outages.
So I think it's part you know,
it's continuing to make sure that we're communicating
with them, but also has to be part of their deployment
of their resiliency strategy.
-: I have one more add for that, Jill,
there's another issue that customers are feeling
with regards to communication
that's not necessarily cell related.
We just had a meeting with Keiko Canyon,
and they're in a canyon in a valley
and they have decent cell service,
but some of them don't have cells,
and they rely on internet.
And so one of the problems is how do they keep their modem
and a router alive and energized when the power's out.
So we have, I went up and down the canyon just two weeks ago
to kind of look at what was going on during
our January event.
And one of the things we have is a rebate program
for power stations that will power their modem
for two or three days.
And so that's part of the problem on the customer side.
Even if the communications or the Internet Service Providers
fix their battery backup,
the customer still needs power necessarily on their side.
So we have about 1000 or 920 of those batteries
that have gone out.
These are not the critical care batteries.
These are just normal rebate batteries
for anybody in a high fire risk area.
And it allowed them to keep their modem
and a router going for multiple days.
And we'll continue to market that this year too.
-: Yes, thank you, Mark.
I know that is that was the most comprehensive solution
is for everyone out there internet and cell phones.
That's why I was just particularly curious
of what went wrong in Acton that they didn't even
have a cell phone service.
As you probably know, President Batjer led an effort
to (indistinct) they have the generation requirement
for this 72 hour backups, so.
You know, it would be good to hear anyway,
in the follow up in your filing.
What exactly was the problem in that case in particular,
and what the remedy will be.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Any other questions or you want me to pick up?
-: Thank you.
Go ahead now.
-: Okay, well, first of all, I apologize.
I promise you I'm not the worst listener in the world.
I just I couldn't hear a thing on my side is
clearly it wasn't working effectively.
Let's go ahead and just jump to the next slide.
And, you know, I've already you know,
we've talked about the reports,
we can better meet the requirements here.
We're working to improve our information management system
so that we can more easily access data.
We've put more resources on it.
So we've got a dedicated team
so we can support this reporting and make sure that
we're breaking the information up in the ways
that you need it and getting it down getting it
to you in a timely basis, there's more work to do.
And we've got to do that between now and next season
so that we can have better integration and automation.
So we commit, we will get further transparency,
not just in getting the information there,
but providing better explanations of how we're assessing
the wildfire risk,
how the benefits of de-energization outweigh,
are compared to the potential public safety risks
and hazards that we've talked about here today,
as well as how the denunciations
are impacting different customer categories.
So look forward to working with you
on clarifying requirements,
making sure that we're meeting those needs,
so we can get the timely reporting
of the information that you need.
So we've gone through a lot of detail and pain points,
I just wanna add, you know, a couple of thoughts on,
you know, as head of operations, it's my job really
to improve the effectiveness of our operations,
and deliver on the commitments that we're making
to our customers and to you.
Operationally, we've talked about some of the improvements
that we've made throughout the year.
And it's been steady progress.
But that's not what we're here to talk about.
I read the posts on social media,
I listened to the customer calls,
I hear every one of your pieces of feedback today.
Frustration, anger, confusion, these are all things
that need to be fixed.
And I assure you that we're committed
to improving the customer experience,
and our engagement with you so that we meet your needs,
and we can solve this stuff together.
PSPS has a big impact on our customers.
One of our core values is excellence.
And it pains me that we have not yet delivered that in PSPS.
But another one is continuous improvement.
And I'm committed, we're committed to be better today
than we were then we've been throughout this year.
And we're going to be a lot better next year
than we've been this year.
So we're investing in the fixes we've talked about here,
we're gonna make it a lot clearer
in our corrective action plans
that you're gonna see in a couple of weeks.
It's gonna be focused on you know,
improving our data quality, getting the automation
that's needed, getting the better coordination,
frankly, fixing some of the human processes
that need to be fixed.
So just wanna say thank you for the time.
Happy to take more questions on this.
And open it up or Kevin can pick up from here.
Female: President Batjer, I have a quick question.
-: Commissioner Shiroma, go ahead please.
-: Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Now, last week, we voted out our track to Mockingbird
decision with Artemis authorizes you all to be able
to have some substation level backup generation micro grid.
And diesel for this year, not 90% cleaner next year.
Are you poised to avail yourself of that?
Do you need that level of backup generation
at the substation to mitigate, turning people's power off?
Or do you know yet?
-: Commissioner was your question about micro grids.
I'm sorry.
It was just a little hard to hear.
-: We voted on our track to market your decision last week.
And it authorizes at the substation level.
You, besides PG&E, you and San Diego Gas electric
to have backup generation at the substation level
in a micro grid configuration.
And for PG&E, that prevented 1000s
of customers from being de-energized in 2020.
So if you don't have an answer today, that's okay.
But just authorize that.
And by the way, you just hired Nicole Howard from SMUD.
I spent 20 years it's nice to help
with your customer service and your customer engagement.
And, I think she's outstanding in terms of her experience
in how do you talk to customers?
Whether it's how do you talk to customers
that we have a free of charge Yeti battery,
that will keep your oxygen supply flowing.
So I know you're gonna be submitting
all sorts of improvements on this.
But you are now authorized
for substation level micro grid backup generation
to mitigate de-energizing customers.
-: Yeah, I can maybe I can just make a quick comment here,
Steven, then you or Phil could pick up.
I think that the places where micro grids
would be useful for us are
perhaps different than they might be for PG&E,
having to do with the way that PG&E handles their their PSPS
where they, I believe they part of their protocol
is to shut out an entire substations and in circuits
that come out of the substations.
What you heard us talk about earlier,
and I'll let my experts here give you more detail
if you like.
But what you heard us talking about earlier was not even,
we're at a point now,
where we've segmented individual circuits,
and we're shutting off segments of circuits,
and not even entire circuits.
In many cases, it's to keep more customers on.
So I think it's probably not a, we probably will not find
a big use for substation level backup generation
for the purposes of PSPS.
Because of the way that our protocol works,
where we have cut our circuits up into segments,
where we can switch them from one feed to another
and keep as many customers on as possible,
but Phil or (indistinct) have a different take than that.
-: I would only add just the piece that the real reason
that PG&E might needed at the substation level is there,
they were having to re-energize at the transmission level
or the sub transit that feeds down into it.
And we're not having to de-energize typically,
at those transmission levels.
And so most of our de-energy stations are happening
downstream from the substations.
So it's unlikely to be, you know, having backup
at that substation is gonna help us a lot,
most of the circuits still are gonna,
are gonna go through high fire areas,
you're gonna have to segment somewhere else.
-: But I will just add, though, that, you know,
we do leverage backup generation in certain cases.
And maybe when there's more time,
we could talk more about what we do.
In the area of micro grids, we have resiliency zones
that we're working on,
and places that are out on our circuits.
You know, we have senior Central High School, for example,
is one where we put in a micro grid
that can allow the school to operate on the solar
panels that they have, and batteries,
and that it can operate in isolation
from the rest of the grid.
And that can be used for the purposes of the school
and also the community around it.
So micro grids for us, the way our system is designed,
may have some different uses.
And backup generation is more for like small underground
or relatively small groupings of customers
with underground feeds that would otherwise be shut off,
or individual customers that are critical customers.
So you know, our system has different needs,
but we are looking at many opportunities there.
-: Okay, thank you for that clarification.
Thank you.
-: We're rounding the the well overdue for a
we're supposed to be in the agenda.
But it's been a rich and important discussion,
and presentation and I think
Edison I think you've heard our concerns.
I will ask if there are any other questions
before we turn to public comments,
I'm a little concerned that our public
has been waiting a good deal of time this afternoon.
Mark or Tom, don't know if you're still with us.
Any final thoughts?
And Commissioners, any final thoughts
before I turn the operator to ask for public comments?
-: No questions from me President Batjer.
-: Nor from me President Batjer at this time.
-: Okay, thanks, Tom.
All right, then.
Oh, thanks (indistinct).
-: President Batjer, just really quickly
if you don't mind, as we had-
-: Yeah, I was going to turn back to you, Kevin, I apologize.
-: Okay, no problem.
All I really wanted to say was, you know,
I hope that the information that was presented
today was helpful, it's one step forward
in a much longer process.
And I just want you all to know that you have my personal
commitment to the progress that we've described
in all the areas that you've brought to our attention.
And you have the personal commitment
of all the other leaders here for medicine on the line.
And we will demonstrate that progress.
And we will demonstrate it through results
and not through plans, as you said President Batjer.
So with that we look forward to hearing from the public.
And we will be looking for any new issues that are coming up
there that we haven't already heard about today.
So thank you very much.
-: Excellent, thank you.
And I do hope that all of the Edison executives
are as able to stay on to listen to public comment.
I think it's gonna be really important.
-: We will all be here-
-: I know you said earlier, but I just wanted to.
I know it's been a long afternoon for you.
So I appreciate that very much.
All right.
Thank you.
We do have likely to have Senator Stern coming on
in public comments.
I'd like to, if he's dialing in,
I would like to take him out of turn.
He was waiting on the line earlier today
and could not get on but
in because we were a little late in starting.
So at any rate, that will be maybe one interruption
that we have during public comments.
Operators do we have anyone on the line?
Operator: Yes, the public comment line is now open.
-: Could you please bring on the first caller?
Operator: Yes.
Our first speaker is Janette McChesney, your line is open.
Janette: Thank you for hosting today's hearing.
I'm Janette McChesney,
I'm the mayor of the city of Moorpark,
which is located right next door to Simi Valley.
Last week, Southern California Edison de-energized
six of our 10 circuits serving more parts,
leaving more than 8000 Moorpark customers without power
for upwards of 40 hours.
This is a second time and as many months
we suffered through multi day PSPS outages.
We are providing more detailed comments
to the public advisor.
But we can sum up SCE communication failures as follows.
One, notifications do not accurately reflect
field conditions, to the point that we cannot trust
whether power is on or off.
Two, the notifications are not timely.
Re-notifications are disjointed and confusing
with conflicting information,
blank messages and incomplete messages.
And four, SCE communicates in circuit names.
But there's no easy way for the public to determine
what circuit they live on or work on
further SDE communication segment numbers,
but has no way for the public
to know their circuits segment number.
We appreciate what the CPUC has done today.
And we are hoping to hold Edison accountable
for their PSPS requirements to inform the public
informed businesses and inform local governments
about their PSPS outages and logistics.
We have been highly impacted by the PSPS events.
SCE efforts thus far have been severely unacceptable.
Thank you for your time.
-: Thank you Madam Mayor.
One thing before we go on to the next caller.
Operator, I do need to tell each of the callers
who will be calling in that you will have a time limit
of two minutes.
I'm sorry that we have to give you a time limit.
But we wanna make sure we hear all of the members
of the public who want to speak.
So you will have two minutes.
When the two minutes is ended.
You will hear a bell and once you hear the bell,
please bring your remarks to a close
so that others in the queue will have their time as well.
So two minutes for each speaker.
Thank you very much operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Thank you.
Our next speaker is Nathaniel Skinner.
Your line is open.
Nathaniel: Thank you Commissioners.
I'm Nathaniel Skinner with the Public Advocate's office.
The Public Advocate's Office appreciates that the Commission
is conducting this public meeting.
We also agreed that the Commission should see corrective
action regarding Southern California Edison's execution
of its de-energization events in 2020.
The Commission should immediately launch
a formal investigation of Edison's failures.
A formal investigation is the vehicle
by which the Commission can publicly review
and make Edison correct any failures.
It allows CAL FIRE, Cal OES, the cities
and counties and the public to review the information,
participate in the process and make their views heard.
It allows stakeholders to review the truth and adequacy
of what Edison did in 2020.
A formal investigation allows the Commission
and stakeholders to examine why Edison failed
to properly notify 10s of 1000s of customers,
including first responders, medical baseline customers,
and critical facilities such as hospitals
and fire departments.
It allows us to look at the accuracy
of Edison's weather forecasts.
And just for Edison has spent the money it receives
from its customers to reduce the risk that its facilities
will cause wildfires.
Furthermore, Edison failed to justify why it chose
to de-energize and did not demonstrate any attempt
to calculate the harm imposed on its customers.
Edison also failed to provide the numbers and types
of customers affected by de-energization
in nearly half of its post de-energization reports.
Without this information stakeholders on the Commission
are unable to perform a complete analysis
of the reasonableness of Edison's decision to de-energize.
A formal investigation will I was to get to the truth
of the matter.
Californians cannot and should not have to tolerate
another fire season with continued failure.
Thank you, Commissioners.
-: Thank you, Mr. Skinner.
I understand that Senator Stern is on the line, operators.
Senators Stern on.
Senator, are you there?
Might have to do star one.
Operator: If Senator Stern would press star zero
I will find his line faster.
-: Okay, well, operator when Senator Stern comes on
I do wanna bring him to the front of the queue.
So let me know when you hear.
I won't interrupt member of the public speaking
but he will be the next to come on.
Okay, thank you.
Could you bring the next caller up, please?
Operator: Thank you.
Our next speaker is Nine Alaba.
Your line is open.
Nine: Distinguished Commissioners on behalf
of the City of Thousand Oaks,
located in Ventura County, we would like to share
our experiences with a recent PSPS event
on January, 19, through the 21st.
Unlike prior events, this was the most severe for both
a city operation and community.
City was advised by SCE in advance of one or more
possible PSPS events affecting a limited number of circuits.
However, this event, seven circuits were down,
one circuit was down due to equipment failure,
resulting in a loss of power to our wastewater treatment
plants for more than 48 hours.
Of 135 traffic signals with battery packs
to operate flashing modes 43 signals were impacted,
seven signals went down completely.
Several signals were down for more than four hours
requiring staff and an outside contractor
to switch out batteries during a 30 hour period
at multiple locations.
This event was frustrating to residents,
especially for senior adults without power for 72 hours.
The advanced notification process
was not followed throughout the event.
Outage information was not posted timely
or accurately on the SEC website.
The 800 number was also not accurate.
The number and length of SCE emails
to the city were counterproductive and confusing.
Varying info from power off, power on, power losses imminent
the same for notification on re-energization.
The ability to share circuit information
is also problematic.
The city asks SCE for an update on the list of circuits
that were de-energized.
So we can strategize.
Only individual addresses could be looked up and verified.
We hope by sharing our experience from last week
that SCE our partners will work with us in improving the
process to protect the health and safety of our community.
Thank you Commissioners for having this meeting today.
-: Thank you for participating.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: The next speaker is Bill Manis.
Your line is open. -: Okay, thank you very much.
Yes, my name is Bill Manis, and I serve
as the president CEO
of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership.
We are a regional business group that covers 31 cities
94,000 businesses and 2 million residents in the
East Los Angeles County.
The San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership appreciates
the CPUC efforts to ensure that public safety power shutoffs
are conducted properly, with effective communication
with the public and sensitivity to facilities and residents
who have special needs and rely
on regular electric services.
TPC President Marybel Batjer has publicly
called senator California Edison's best execution
of the power shut off events as tackles and decision.
I agree.
The power shut offs are concerned
and has caused serious problems.
Major economic ramifications as such as shutting down
large users for one to two days, which can cause businesses
to lose hundreds of 1000s if not millions of dollars
due to lost time of their day to day business.
Shut offs can also hit convenience 1000s of employees
who are now working from home, as well as children
who are attending school via video conference.
That being said the state of California is asking
folks like SoCal Edison
to do their best in a very difficult situation.
No one has power over the wind and or weather.
And while Edison has invested in hardening
their power transmission systems.
In short term power shut offs are the best way for now
to avoid major wildfires,
which can cause potentially billions of dollars of damage.
So certainly, there was room as far as improvement.
But we would ask that
you work with Southern California Edison,
and work in a meaningful way to come up with improvements
in communication and operation for their ongoing
power shut off.
And I thank you for your time today.
-: Thank you, operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: The next speaker is John Gray,
your line is open.
John: Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you, everybody.
This is very,
very welcomed by the public.
And I'll try to speak on behalf of the public
with the frustration that these power shutoffs
have just been happening in the last couple of years,
but the winds and the fire damage,
the fire danger has been present forever.
So something changed in the last couple of years.
And the feeling among the general public, myself included
is that it's possible that the power company may be
neglecting the upgrades and maintenance of their equipment.
And now, possibly, maybe trying to avoid a lawsuit
by causing the power shut off.
Could somebody please address that possibility?
Thank you.
-: Thank you, sir, they can address that as a follow up
after the public comment period.
Okay, thank you very much for your comments.
Operator next caller, please.
Operator: The next speaker is Glen Bailey.
Your line is open. -: Thank you.
My name is Glen Bailey.
And I am calling regarding the Chatsworth area
of the San Fernando Valley,
which is to the east of Simi Valley,
but in a different County.
So first of all, I heard earlier in this meeting
that this is a comment about keep the lights on.
I wish that's all it was 'cause we figured that out,
what we haven't figured out is everything else,
that we rely on power, such as refrigerators
to keep our food safe.
After 36 hours three times in the last several months
they has been problematic, especially in September
and October when the temperatures were higher.
But now with temperatures down to the low 40s.
Heat, keeping heat and warmth will be an issue.
But I wanted to put Chatsworth on the map
there's hundreds of residents who live north
of the 118 freeway that are served by Edison.
And for some reason the the freeway
and Topanga Canyon Boulevard intersection,
a major intersections and canyons a state highway as well.
The signals are out for 36 hours at a time
whenever the power is off, there is no flashing lights,
there is no traffic control officers.
We're talking about 10s of 1000s of folks
who probably didn't even know that there's a power outage
are coming from other areas are only defined on
a major intersection, that there is no control whatsoever.
And nobody from the city, the county from Edison
has done anything about that month after month after month.
That's a major major issue.
Regarding Edison's customer support,
they seem to be friendly enough,
but they really know nothing.
I've given up calling them they kick they are
not able to provide any information.
They've been told that they can't.
They haven't been told information.
I try to give them information like the wind has died down
to a gentle breeze.
And they say that they can't they have no way to report
that to anyone.
They say check the website.
Well, how are you supposed to check the website?
If you don't have any power.
You don't have any internet.
That is absolutely ridiculous.
So yes, Edison needs to provide information
to the customer service that's really meaningful.
And it needs to be a two way exchange.
And they need to provide actual information.
Such as they at one point, we were told,
there will be no restoration of power at night
'cause they have to go out and inspect the lines.
And then yep, and so, you know, then we plan accordingly.
And then turns out the power did come on at night,
which is fine, great.
But you know, it's almost like the right hand
doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
That needs to be improved.
And I hope that this Commission will make sure that happens.
And for the next series of community meetings,
I would request that one be held for the Chatsworth
residents because it sounds like you've held me
for other communities but you have not notified the folks
in Chatsworth within Los Angeles County.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Mr. Bailey.
Senator Stern, I understand you're on the line.
I would like you to.
Senator Stern: Am I coming through okay?
-: We can hear you loud and clear.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining. -: Thank you, President Batjer
for your attention to this issue today and for initiating
this proceeding bringing Edison and to all the constituents
and residents who are calling in to have been
sharing their stories.
Thank you all for participating in a process
that takes extra effort on top of the
trials and tribulations you've been going through
not just this PSPS and fire season, but last year,
and the year before that.
And every year, it seems like we say we're gonna fix it,
and it's gonna get better.
And we're gonna take down the number of these incidents,
or we're gonna provide you all with ways
to mitigate some of the damage.
And yet, history keep seeming to repeat itself here.
You know, I haven't been through nearly as much as
the people I represent in places like Glenn
was just testifying from Chatsworth
or Rosemary Allison out in the Santa Rosa Valley
or the folks in Simi Valley or Santa Clarita Valley
or Malibu Topanga, Moorpark Santa Clarita.
It's all throughout the Santa Monica Mountains
in Santa Susanna mountain regions.
And, you know, I wanna be just specific in my remarks,
I don't wanna take too much time here.
But I'm hoping out of this hearing that we see
real concrete action and a level of diligence
that we can't just go on and sort of good faith
and trust alone anymore.
What I'm hoping that the Commission and Edison
can start to land on is something
some kind of transparent timeline and series of goals
and targets for the community to actually be able to lean on
and be able to follow along with
both historically what lines and circuits
and work has been done to upgrade the grid,
but also what are planned upgrades going on
and not just in terms of new wires being put up,
or new poles being reinforced, or new auto re-closers
being installed, but also the distributed generation
being placed in the community.
How many critical care backup battery generators
have been distributed?
How many people have been enrolled in medical baseline?
We have a serious concern about under enrollment
in a program that frankly hasn't been marketed
less than $100,000 a marketing put into enrolling
the most medically vulnerable people into a program
that they can actually then get access
maybe to a backup battery generator.
But at this point, it looks like you know
the numbers on medical baseline, somewhere 20, 30%
of the total IHSS numbers
for the entire Southern California Edison region.
So I think we're severely under shooting it on that front.
And I would submit for the Commission's consideration,
a plan that that supplied these kind of backup batteries
for homeowners and residents renters,
not just if they're in critical care,
or even if they're in medical baseline.
But if they're experiencing any hardship whatsoever,
the families who are having to Zoom into school,
families with disabilities or other access
and functional needs.
We think that backup battery generators is a good near term,
stopgap in addition to getting much better
advanced communication, and some way to get compensation
for the losses associated with this
not just for the lost groceries, but also for the trauma
and the stress that people have felt,
I hope if it's determined that Edison
has not acted prudently, or in any way violated
the existing guidelines of the Commission,
that penalties and fines also be considered
and brought back to the community for some kind
of compensation for the pain and suffering they've endured.
And lastly, I know I mentioned it earlier,
but we wanted to keep a better eye on the money
that's being spent in the self generation incentive program.
So permanent solar and storage systems being put
in the community as well as the micro grids
that have been talked about in a recent proceedings,
a $200 million pot of funds.
We'd like to see the Commission be very
sort of hands on about administering that funding
and make sure that it's typically sited
in these communities, so that we don't have to be cycled on
and off, that folks at the end of these lines
can be agnostic to whether the power grids on or off
by distributing some of these resources
and allowing these end users to share amongst themselves,
whether they're a school or a business or a homeowner.
So those are some of the serious concerns we've raised.
If necessary, we'll run additional legislation.
And you know, we've run legislation in the past,
we'd rather not have to go that route, 'cause it's slow.
So really just putting our confidence and trust and hope
in the Commission today,
to deliver for the hundreds of 1000s of people
who have been so negatively impacted, not just this year,
but for years to come.
So thank you for the brief moment of time President Batjer
and to the rest of participants.
-: Thank you, sir- -: President Batjer.
President Batjer. -: Yes, Cliff.
-: President Batjer, this is Cliff.
Before Senator Stern leaves, I was just wondering if someone
from Edison could respond to his concern
about the insufficient amount of money devoted to marketing
to increase the number of chair customer.
Senator Stern before you are on,
we did hear from Edison that they've increased
their enrollments and cared I think it was 14%.
I can't remember exactly.
But I'm wondering if someone could address
the larger concern that Senator Stern has raised.
-: (indistinct), Jill Anderson can address that one.
Jill. -: Kevin, can be happy to.
So we certainly agree, Senator, that it's critical
that we identify the customers that are most vulnerable,
so we can get them enrolled in the programs
that are going to help them.
So we did share earlier that we have a we saw 14% increase
in medical baseline enrollment in 2020.
We've also seen a significant increase in enrollment
in Karen Farah, which is the discount program
that Commissioner Rechtschaffen was just mentioning,
and then no further, we are expanding the critical care
battery backup program currently targeted only at
those customers who are considered most critical.
Now in 2021, we're expanding that to all
of the medical baseline customers in the high fire risk area
with income qualified who are in-
-: Jill, somehow we lost you.
-: Sorry, can you hear me?
I thought that someone was trying to break
into ask a question.
So but you know, we additionally, you know,
we're doing some additional outreach
to expand the number of enrollments
that we have in those programs.
And in one point on a statistic that you mentioned,
you know, that we're only I think you said 20, to 30%,
of IHSS, one thing, we report in account numbers,
no numbers of account, which could be multiple people
in the same household, IHSS, as people,
so we can do a better job explaining that
and sharing our statistics so that we can really get a clear
kind of common understanding of what the gap is,
but I think the gap is, is smaller,
but we certainly still do have more work to do.
-: It'll be I think there was a concern as a senator,
that your marketing
budget was somewhere between 80 and 100,000.
And that seems fairly small given the population
you need to reach.
I think that's a more specific answer or question.
-: Yeah, I actually don't have what our marketing budget is
off the top of my head that specific for medical baseline.
We certainly spending much more than that.
When we look at the broader services
for income qualified customers CARE, Farah,
he said, even the critical care battery program.
So that number also sounds small to me,
but I will look up and make sure that we have the latest.
-: Thank you.
Thank you, Jill.
Okay.
Sorry, I've been on mute.
Thank you, Senator Stern.
If you're still on the line, thanks for calling in
very much appreciated.
And I will now turn back to the operator
to continue the public comments.
So the next caller please, operator.
Operator: Our next speaker is Jennifer Sage,
your line is open.
Jennifer: Hi, thank you for all your information.
You all have done your homework.
I'm kind of new to this.
I have a ranch in the upper Ohio Valley
and I have 23 horses on it.
And I also have two tenants.
And the problem with my property
and I hope you do address this is that my water pump
I'm on CSR water company we hold shares
and my property which has 11 acre horse ranch is located
my, the water pump (indistinct) water is located
lower than the elevation of my dwellings and my home.
And so therefore I need to pump my water to the house
use an accelerated pump to get water.
So when my electricity goes off,
we have no water for anything.
We run 100 jumping facility, we have clinics,
we have less than and people are scheduled
weeks in advance to participate.
And then we have no electricity.
And this has been a real hardship
also my tenants on the property,
we are in a rural area they work remotely.
Their businesses are held at the residents
and they are cut off entirely with their jobs.
I have forwarded credit to them
for the days that they are not able to work.
And yet, I'm not getting any kind of rebate
from Southern California Edison.
And it would be really nice to see some kind of plan
in place where we get a rebate for a full charge
for the entire day of not electric interruption.
And a new generator to generate just my water pump
cost over $700.
And that will need to be into place fairly soon.
And there's nothing that
there's no programs that will reimburse me for that.
And, of course to have two generators on the property
because both my dwellings are five acres apart.
That's another $7,000 and then an additional $7,000
to get electricity.
So I don't know what kind of list everyone's on.
I'm the homeowner owner, I don't get any information at all
about what they're doing to cover these losses
and that I'm having to fork out on my own pocket
to keep my renters in place so that they don't leave.
So I do appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your time and you're listening to
my please here.
-: Thank you Miss Nage.
Thank you for calling in.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: That is from city Valley city
Councilwoman Ruth Lou Evanesce.
Your line is open.
Ruth: Can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can.
Thank you. -: Hi.
This is (indistinct) Valley city councilwoman Ruth webinar.
And I'm calling on behalf of the 1000s of residents
that I represent here in the city of Simi Valley,
this opinion represents my own and no one else's.
But I'm calling to let you know that
we're very concerned about all of the impacts
that all these things have had, you're gonna hear
a lot of residents talk about all the impacts
that all the things have happened with the power shutdown
from teachers and students that have lost days of school
to workers that have had to drive miles and miles
to try to find someplace where they can get a hotspot
where they can get internet
so that they can actually do the job
that they're being paid to do,
to parents who are worried about whether or not
they have medical devices that they need
for the senior parents when they live in three generation
households such as I do.
But what I'm really here to talk about is accountability.
I would like to know where the grid resiliency is happening,
and why the areas that are being most impacted,
or we're having the most power shutdown events
are not being prioritized for hardening the equipment
and the hardware is there.
That's what I would like to know.
I would like a map from SoCal Edison,
showing exactly where they have spent the money
that they have been given to make sure they backup
all the equipment to make sure they insulate all the wires
to prevent these kinds of activities.
These power shutdown events which are devastating loss
communities in the middle of a pandemic,
with an economic turndown.
I would also like to know why the first ones
to be shut down.
The circuits that are first to be shut down
are the last ones to be turned back on.
We have people that are without power for 36 hours,
48 hours, 72 hours, and they're the last ones
to be turned back on, and they can simply not afford
the things that needs to be done.
The $800 power generators, all the things that you know,
the $800 or $5,000 for the generators.
We have neighbors that are going down the street
to each other, and then going to the community centers
that are open to help those that are in need
and then to find out that they don't have power either.
So you're shutting down at one time we had 75%
of the entire city of Simi Valley that was shut down.
That means that I have to pack up my kids and my car
and drive all the way to Sylmar or San Fernando
or (indistinct) wherever it is that we can find family
and friends and DWP, where they also have windy events.
They also have wildfires
and they're not losing their electricity,
they're not losing their Wi-Fi.
They still have access to that.
So I want answers and I want accountability from SCE.
I want a map of all of the places where they have actually
done the work to reinforce the the equipment
where they have hardened the wires, the grid resiliency,
and why they are prioritizing the places
that keep getting hit with this power shutdown event.
That's what I would request.
Respectfully, thank you.
-: Thank you, Councilwoman.
Operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Dr. Cynthia Novak
with Seminole Spring. -: Thank you.
Can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can. -: My name is
Dr. Cynthia Novak, as she said I'm grateful
for this public hearing.
I'm a board member at Seminal Springs,
a relatively affordable mobile home Co Op community
and unincorporated LA County in the midst
of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Seminole Springs lost 110 homes out of 215 homes
in the November Woolsey fire.
And while we understand SCE's need to make tough decisions
about when to call a PSPS event.
We at Seminole Springs believe that protocols need to be
refined and defined so that when feasible,
certain communities are exempted from the PSPS event.
Seminole Springs has recently had underground
electrical distribution lines installed in our community.
Further, we're located near a power station.
Thus, it seems reasonable to us that Seminole Springs
is a good example of a community that would qualify,
at least for some or most PSPS events to be a micro grid,
where Seminole Springs could maintain power.
In our community of 215 homes,
we have numerous vulnerable elderly,
who may require medical equipment
or refrigeration for medications.
And in addition, these vulnerable individuals
would suffer from no heat in winter
or a lack of means of cooling and very hot summer weather.
Many of our diverse residents come from median
or lower income homes that can ill afford
to lose refrigerated and frozen food.
And now in this age of COVID,
we have many school aged children, Zoom schooling
and many folks working from home.
Also please note we are located in a canyon
with exactly one road out, Kanan Road,
Mulholland is closed in one direction
and the other direction it goes straight
into more mountains.
So without electricity, our entire community is vulnerable.
If there's a mudslide or a fire or other emergencies.
We submit that being part of a micro grid would be ideal
for our community.
And thank you so much for the opportunity
to voice this perspective.
-: Thank you, Dr. Novak.
The next caller please, operator.
Operator: Our next speaker is Catherine Paul,
your line is open.
Catherine: Okay, thank you.
I'm a member of the board of directors
of the Cable Canyon Civic Association,
although I'm speaking for my own experience,
and that mostly about communication.
Communication from Edison, about outages is irregular
and consistent and false.
But it's all we have.
And I'd like you to pretend
that you have the experiences that I'm going to mention.
On December, 3rd, the day my power was shut off.
I received phone calls from Edison about the shut off
at 2:02AM, at 2:37AM, at 3:07AM
before the shuttle occurred at 4AM.
Another example on January, 19th.
I received calls at 1:03AM, four o'clock AM, 4:30AM
and 5AM, before the power was finally showed off at 9AM.
When I have been outside and a message has been left
on the phone, it's in an Asian language
which I can't follow.
I've spent at least half an hour online,
on phone speaking to Edison about this situation.
And I am told, I have no choice,
but to listen to the messages,
because I'm either going to receive a warning,
or I'm not going to get any warning.
And the fact is that I do need the warning.
I also wanted to mention.
Oh, and then after the restoration of power,
I will get a message
a day later that now Edison is going to inspect the lines,
and we may get power soon.
So these are specific examples.
I did wanna say that
Edison I think, saved us during by us having power
during the Creek Fire, December, 5th, 2017.
Because if we hadn't had electricity,
I don't know how the fire people would have found our homes,
how we would have gotten ourselves out of our Canyon.
We as it was we lost 16 homes,
and people had to drive through flames to get out.
And so we were very fortunate to save everyone,
including horses, but it was a very dramatic situation.
And I was so glad to be able to have not only power,
but the warnings from our one call system
that we have in our community.
So in some respects,
we need the fire just to be able to live.
Thank you. -: Thank you.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Anet Kessler,
your line is open. -: I'm open.
Hello, this is Anet Kessler.
I live in Simi Valley.
And I am very thankful for you having this event today.
And for everybody speaking, it's been very helpful.
And it's a relief to finally be able to have my voice heard.
It's been very frustrating.
There's been like no one to contact.
So I have the area that I live in,
which is nowhere near a mountain has been affected
by every single PSPS event, every single one.
I don't know where we are on the grid.
It's very confusing.
I wish Edison would provide information about that.
We are usually the first one off and the last one on.
Personally, how it's affected us financially.
It's been a nightmare.
Losing groceries, probably over $3,000 worth of groceries.
Just since September.
There is no reimbursement for that,
there's no offer of rebates on generators,
there's nothing yet Edison still wants to be paid on time.
I was recently on disability going through cancer treatment.
I went through every single one of my chemotherapy
appointments and a surgery without power.
It seemed like they were all coinciding with each other.
It was horrible.
And my first day back to work was the January event.
And so on my first day back to work,
I could not work because we had no power and no internet.
But they're not reimbursing me for that.
And they still want their money.
I have elderly neighbors in the cold weather
who were turning on their burners on their stove
and going to bed at night to stay warm.
Because they were so cold.
My son lost out on an amazing opportunity
to get an internship because we were
without power, without internet.
It's very concerning.
I wish my I would love to call Edison to the carpet
and ask them to fix their equipment,
or start reimbursing people if they had to start paying
the community for their shortcomings
maybe they wouldn't be so quick to throw that switch.
We need some consistency.
We need some changes here.
Anyway, I'm out of time I could go on forever.
But thank you everybody for holding this event
and thank you for the time.
-: Thank you for taking the time to call in.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Thank you.
Our next speaker is Gary Schwimmer.
Your line is open. -: Hello, can you hear me?
Hello.
-: Yes, yes, we can hear you fine.
Go ahead. -: Sorry, thank you.
Well, we are all aware of the frequent alerts and actions
from SCE regarding power outages due
to the weather forecasts of winds,
or the actual occurrence of windy weather.
It seems to be unreasonable that the power outages
have occurred rather frequently in the last two years
that have occurred in the last 30 plus years
that I've lived in Simi Valley.
As I understand it in their wildfire mitigation plan,
portion of the plan has to do with the PSPS
and explains how they going to de-energize
and re-energize power to address wildfire risks.
SCE in that plan acknowledges that PSPS
is a preventative measure of last resort.
If SCE reasonably believes that there is
an imminent significant risk that strong winds
may topple power lines or caused major damage,
but it can from a consumer perspective,
it seems to be the first solution.
And the CPUC published guidelines in code 8386
and PSPS are phase one and phase two documents.
That there's a requirement that a description
of the actions of the utility company will take
to ensure a system to achieve the highest level of safety,
reliability and resiliency, and to ensure that its system
is prepared for a major event must be identified
in their plans.
What seems to be lacking is a methodology for verification
of the progress in achieving hardening.
As part of any PSPS event,
SCE is required to submit a post event report to the CPUC
within 10 days.
Within this report, SCE must answer specific questions.
My concern here is that if you look at for example,
question 10 from the October, 23, to 28th, 2020 outage,
SCE responded that SCE does not perform separate
risk assessments to establish de-energization thresholds
during each PSPS event rather than incorporate
a known risk and sets thresholds.
But if you look at every report since October, 23rd and 28
your boilerplate answers and they took out the comment
that they do not perform separate assessments.
So I'm concerned that if a company boilerplates
their answers to a report that has to be
submitted for each events, that they're not applying
the attention required to address the situation.
So for this, I see both SCE and CPUC being held accountable
to perform their tasks to improve the situation
to validate reports.
I know my time's running out.
So I want to talk about the CURC plans.
In Simi Valley- -: I'm sorry,
your time has run out.
I apologize. -: Okay, thank you.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for calling in.
Bye bye.
Next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is William Slocum.
Your line is open. -: Hi, this is
William Slocum with the Cable King
And Civic Association Station, I'm the president.
I want to support the eloquent words from President Batjer
and the elected officials and our northern neighbors
and (muffled speaking).
I don't wanna mention all the things
that have already been noted.
But I do want to say that they all happen here
in Cagle, Canyon PSPS shut up
our public safety issue.
In 2007, a kids Paul had previously mentioned
we had a wind driven fire that went through
our community taking 16 homes.
The power stayed on, people got out.
I personally could not get out with my partner Brian Gavin.
We stood here for four and a half hours
with a hose putting you down a hot burning embers
10s of 1000s of hot burning embers
that were falling on our home and falling on our cars.
And without that well being able to pump water
we would not been able to
we wouldn't be on this phone call today.
So I wanna thank you for having this hearing.
And bringing this to the attention
of Southern California Edison and good day.
-: Thank you It's just welcome the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Lovely Purcell.
Your line is open. -: Oh, sure.
What do I do?
Operator: Your line is open (faintly speaking) Purcell.
Female: Am I okay?
Can you hear me?
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Okay, great.
This is Lovely Purcell and I'm (indistinct) residence.
I have not been actually myself affected
by this power shut off.
But I know people that have,
and I was here during the Thomas fire.
So I experienced
one of the effects of downed power lines and so forth.
But what I wanted to say was I'm encouraging.
Sorry, I'm little out of breath.
I was on the beach taking a walk.
But anyway, micro grids, and local solar generation.
I heard a couple people mentioned this before,
and I think it's really important for us
to look at that as an option.
And communities over is something that we could
easily accomplish with municipal, educational,
commercial industrial buildings, rooftop solar on
other multi family and multi use buildings, parking lots.
There are so many opportunities and micro grids
with battery storage would really help
to increase our resilience in the future.
So please consider this.
Thank you.
-: Operator next caller please.
Operator: That is from (indistinct) your line is open.
James: Thank you.
Thank you, James Vega, the city manager of the city of Ohio.
Thank you, Commissioners for your time and consideration
of this issue.
I will keep the comments brief.
Mostly were reiterating
some of the things you've heard here today.
Here in Ohio, Northern Ventura County,
we've had several advisories of potential public safety,
power shut off.
And one major public safety power shutoff event
on December, 8th, that resulted in a power outage
that lasted more than 24 hours for many residents
and had many negative impacts, including
requiring the city to cancel multiple public meetings,
because residents could not participate due
to the lack of power.
And then some of the other things mentioned today,
like spoiled groceries and things like that as well.
We've identified four, I'm sorry, three key issues
that we wanted to raise.
A lot of these have been raised by other groups.
But one is the notifications and public information
that has been provided has not been accurate,
including emails, phone contacts and
meeting when we call the phone lines.
And when we got residents to call the phone lines
for information, and the Southern California Edison
websites, there's been a lot of comments we've received
and complaints we've received about inaccurate information
about whose power's out and when
and when it will re-energized.
The second is the public notification process.
And systems seem to be not working, they seem to be broken.
There's duplicated notices that are going out
with many times with blank or missing information
or notices go out to people that their power
is not being de-energized.
And then they call us and tell us that their power
has been off for hours.
So just a lot of mixed messages
and problems with the information system
and notification system.
And then lastly, we had with our big outage
that we did have we had a delayed re-energization process.
People were told that power to be back on at about 6PM
that day, and then it was extended to 8PM that day,
and then it was overnight, and then it ended up
coming on about midday that the following day.
So just you know, we reiterate a lot of the issues
that you've heard, I know this is a long hearing.
So we appreciate your time.
And thank you.
-: Thank you Mr. Vegan.
Operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Kelly from Simi Valley,
your line is open.
Kelly: Thank you very much for having this call today.
Appreciate it for not just Edison, but also the Commission.
As a resident of Simi Valley and someone who has
rather extensive utility experience.
I understand how the program works.
I understand the mitigation costs,
I understand the GRC ,I understand quite a bit of it.
And I've been able to express to some of my neighbors
and conversation, how it all works,
our rates are set et cetera.
However, it's also extremely frustrating,
especially with you know, the fact that we're at home
we've got kids doing online school children
with special needs.
The fact that the communication I know we've touched on it
but is not even considered slightly adequate.
On the 20th and the 19th when I was out of power
just on the 19th alone
and my phone only holds 40 text messages from Edison.
I got 38 texts on Wednesday, many of the middle of night
multiple ones telling me my power is going to be shut off.
It's been restored.
There's only two zip codes in Simi Valley.
So I can understand where if you went by zip codes,
as you were explaining earlier,
you could get multiple, you know, communications,
but there's no reason that Edison can't have an implemented
automatic text or email or call that is based off
of not just the circuit,
but the specific segment that someone is on.
So they know that they're what the information
they're getting is realistic on time
and actually informational.
Additionally to that I'm very frustrated
that you have ex parte hearings happening on the GRC.
There's decisions that are coming out in February
for a rate increase that according to your documentation,
says that it is specifically driven
by the wildlife related mitigation activities.
If that is true, I would like to know as a ratepayer.
Where did my money go for your GRC
for the previous testing year,
that was supposed to be dedicated
to your wildlife management plan?
I'd also like in their response, you know,
we get these text messages and information on your website
that tells me, you know, here's my website,
links to be prepared.
I want Edison to explain to me and the rest of the community
in their response, how am I supposed to prepare
as a finish up in 30 seconds,
as a parent, with children better remote learning,
teachers that are remote learning,
when you're a $50 rebate on a generator,
or the $30,000 estimate that I got through your marketplace
for a battery backup from my house is not feasible.
Thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate it.
And I'll be working with Mayor Mashburn.
And all the councilmen for the rest of my questions.
-: Thank you.
Operator, next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Susan Wapner.
Your line is open.
-: Hi, can you hear me? -: Yes, we can.
Thank you. -: Hi.
Thanks for this opportunity.
I just wanted to talk about my mom's experience.
She lives in a senior apartment complex in.
Sorry, I'm nervous.
In Santa Clarita, and the entire complex was
out for 36 hours last week, leaving the residents without
light, hot water or a way to cook meal,
or even charges cell phone.
The loss of refrigerated food or hand or medications
is something that most residents can't afford,
because they're on a limited income.
And these are very vulnerable people,
I had a hard time getting a hold of anybody from Edison
to bring my concerns about this
because they're on a grid that,
well, they're next to a big shopping center,
the shopping center was still on.
And it looked like they were at the end,
I think you call it a circuit,
they were at the end of a circuit that extended
across the big Street and into the hills headed
toward Canyon Country.
So I don't know if it's possible for
I don't know if Edison is aware
of what they're shutting down when they shut power off
that almost 400 seniors were without power for 36 hours
leaving them with dark hallways had there been a fire.
And the residents on the second
and third floors could not have
possibly got now because the elevators were not working
in the hallways were dark as were the stairwells.
So and this was just a big concern for the residents
and their families.
And so that's really that was our experience with this.
And so I was just asked that Edison
please be aware of what is within a circuit
that they are setting off.
And I hear the bell going off.
So thank you very much for that opportunity
to share this with you.
-: Thank you for calling.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Kathy.
Your line is open. -: Hello, I am a resident
of Canyon Country.
And I lived here for almost 50 years.
And during that time, I know that we have had wind
and we have had low humidity.
And I am not aware of any problems that that caused.
Obviously I've listened to a lot of callers
and I share all their feelings.
But I would like the PUC to consider
working with Edison to stop these.
If they can't be stopped in their entirety, maybe they can
be looked at to be more focused on areas that are of concern
either because the equipment is old and needs
some work done on it, or areas that are close to brush.
I live in a large areas surrounded by tract homes.
And I do not understand if there's a problem
with a power line how that poses a significant fire risk.
I understand if I was in a close to a brush area
that it would.
But where I live, I just don't see it.
Now after one of the recent outages I sent a letter
to I went on the internet and I found out
who couple of the executives were at Edison
and I sent an email off to them.
And they were very gracious in responding.
But the bottom line was is this is the way it is.
And in my letter I asked how do you determine
what areas should be turned off,
because I drove around during the last shutoff.
And you can go from one block to the next
where the wind is the same, but their power was on.
So in this letter, they kind of deferred to the PUC
that the PUC was telling them what areas to turn off.
And I don't think that was correct.
And I did hear the bell.
So that's it.
Thank you very much.
-: Thank you for your call.
-: Thank you. -: Operator the
next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Kip Drawback,
President Ellsworth Lake Manor town council,
your line is open.
Kip: Well, good evening, everybody.
I think the afternoon has come and gone.
I live in Chatsworth Lake Manor, we were very small,
but very active community here on the border
of Ventura County in Los Angeles County,
we have the curse of being multi jurisdictional.
And I've been through many, many power outages
in the last 20 years and it's become a fashion
now to call them PSPS is particularly
if they are seen to prevent
to be a mitigation for wildfires.
What isn't mitigated 30 effectively is the lack of power.
We don't live in the 19th century anymore,
but we are objected, forcefully back into it
every time we have one of these power outages
with the notion that only people
with medical conditions need to be worried.
The rest of us are left to our own devices.
The talk of battery backups and solar panel systems
as mitigation measures sound reasonable,
but they are expensive.
They take a long time.
Batteries generally aren't gonna
get you through a 72 hour power outage.
These wind situations don't seem to last conveniently
for 24 hours.
Plus, it takes time for Edison to turn the power back on
because they have to inspect everything.
So a battery backup doesn't seem to work.
what the problem is we have the equipment failure.
It would be the same situation
if we had a brownout every summer
because there wasn't enough power
to power all the air conditioning units
that keep this community comfortable.
And, you know, provide the internet services that we need
the heating that we need in the summer in the wintertime.
This is not consumed.
If we had a brownout every summer
because it wasn't enough power.
There would not be a quiet underground movement
like what we're hearing, we would have public outrage
that the power companies aren't taking care
of their responsibilities.
And I would submit to you that so tell Edison
needs to work on their
grid hardening and get the grid hardened.
This is not a sustainable situation having PSPSs
all the time.
So we need to get Edison on a schedule
mandated by the Public Utility Commission
to get this situation corrected.
Only one grid hardening activity was taking place
in our neighborhood in the last year.
Anyway, ironically, we're on what's called
the energy circuit we have the distinction
of being on the circuit that's been shut off
the most number of times of any circuit that SoCal
at enhanced by their own description.
Thank you for your time.
-: Thank you. -: Thank you for your-
-: Next caller please operator.
Operator: The next speaker is Catherine Von Berg.
Your line is open.
Catherine: Yes, hello, thank you.
Catherine Von Berg, I'm the CEO of a battery manufacturing
company located in Oxnard.
We design them as manufacturer, non toxic batteries.
In the last year of PSPS events have already cost
the state billions in losses and pre-COVID
these continued losses have eroded economic
security for California.
Post COVID, these losses are to continually undermine our
hopeful economic recovery.
Even homes with solar panels lose the ability
to generate power during PSPS events.
They are tied to the grid.
Unless homes and businesses hospitals, schools
or other critical infrastructure
have customers cited backup power in the form of batteries,
not generators that further pollute
and require often unavailable fuel
in power outages and forest fires.
People remain in the dark, even with rooftop solar.
Given the years of neglect to upgrade
utility infrastructure, the cost is estimated
to upgrade in the billions.
Funds that are currently not available.
Again, if customers have backup batteries,
they have power for critical electrical loads
through outages, with or without solar panels.
We are in Oxnard and manufacturer,
again safe non toxic battery storage.
Why isn't SCE working with California companies like ours
to purchase and deploy backup power similar to owning
and installing smart meters which utilities own and deploy.
Utilities can own and install batteries
to honor their mandate to deliver safe and reliable power.
Further, the timeline for SCE to approve InterConnection
agreements is very long and also creates delays.
We have customers that have been waiting
for InterConnection agreements,
very often for months through 2020.
While PS events occurred.
Distributed batteries at homes and businesses,
schools, hospitals already are creating
a cost effective strategy to keep critical loads on
for customers reading resilience and mitigating the billions
in losses already incurred by PSPS events.
Customers sided batteries distributed across communities,
not large megawatt hour batteries that very often rely
on the same transmission and distribution lines
that are shut down, create energy security
and economic security that we are looking for.
We continue to reach out to utilities
to partner as we have these installations
all over California and deed the world.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Operator next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Loretta Ballard.
Your line is open. -: Yes, hi.
I also live in the Chatsworth area.
And we have been affected by every single PSP event.
I find them criminal.
And I really want Edison held accountable.
It is not my fault that their electric grids caused a fire.
And now because they're scared of losses,
they shut our electric off as their first line of defense.
This needs to stop and it needs to be mitigated.
I, not even third world countries
get their electric shut off like we do all the time.
It's just it's asinine to me, and I don't understand it.
I am not a native California.
I come from the east coast.
And we have storms all the time,
and they don't shut off our electric.
Your bad planning has resulted in our emergencies.
I've a very sick husband at home.
But unfortunately, I don't meet any of your qualifications
to get battery backup.
I would like to know what you all are doing
to plan the communication.
Yeah, it's absolutely horrible.
But what's even worse is that I'm not hearing a plan
of what you're doing to prevent from having
to shut these off all the time.
That is what I wanna hear.
Not about how many phone calls I receive.
I don't wanna receive any phone calls.
I want my electric.
And I don't understand why that is a problem
and why we're not why you are not hardening the grid
and doing the things that need to be done.
Thank you for your time.
-: Thank you for your call.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator, next caller please. -: My apologies.
Next speaker is Alexa Martin.
Your line is open.
Alexa: Hi, my name is Alexa Martin
and I am 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 is first began, we knew right away
that as a community based organization
in the high wildfire risk area,
we needed to be a part of this solution.
We began by educating the utility companies
on what people with disabilities
that are reliant on power need and how significant impacts
of a PSPS could be, as well as ensuring individuals we serve
have the backup power they need during a shut off.
Throughout our efforts in communications with SCE
we have felt that they have understood our concerns
and we have been met with nothing but support.
We have since been able to provide disability trainings
began contracting with SCE to perform marketing
to people with disabilities, their family members,
doctors and the broader public about the medical baseline
program and other programs available through SCE.
But it really comes down to is that public safety power
shut offs are challenging for everyone,
especially the disability community.
They impact planning, preparation and communication.
However, it is our experience that SCE has been responsive
to all of our suggestions,
supported our highest risk community members
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.
-: Thank you.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Next speaker is Trustee Kipps.
Your line is open.
Trustee: Hello, thank you everyone
for participating in this event.
I hear a lot of frustrated people.
I am one of those.
I live in San Bernardino
I live across from Cal State San Bernardino.
And what I can tell you is I agree with the mayor
of Simi Valley that Southern California Edison
needs to be held economically responsible
for what they're causing here.
I'd like to know what percentage of claims
of Southern California Edison has denied.
I filed a claim.
And my neighbor filed a claim for loss of food
and generators and all the 1000s of dollars we're spending
and it was denied.
So that's one thing I'd like someone to look into
is why Southern California Edison
is not being held accountable economically
for what they're causing, because they're not able to supply
our power needs in a way that is reliable.
And it is so extreme that I invite you guys to
look at a report that was filed by them.
Page 17 of a report October, 21st to the 26th
where they actually denied the San Bernardino County
Fire Department re-energy, I'm sorry.
They denied the fire department to turn the lights
back on to fight a fire.
What is going on with that?
What kind of power does Edison have
when they can tell the fire department,
sorry, we're not gonna give you power?
I mean, that's ridiculous.
That is the antithesis that is the opposite of safety.
So I'm pretty worked up here.
I really hope that something is done.
And not just it sounds like this issue has been
being tossed around.
But nothing's actually ever changed.
I lived here in 2019.
I can tell you the shut off for way worse than 2020.
I've had to become adept at using a generator
filling a gas tank, things that my age
I should not have to learn how to do.
This shut off on the 23rd I would have no way
to keep my home I got sick as a dog
for two weeks after that.
I was without power for 36 hours.
And I hear the other people on the line
and it is criminal what is being allowed to go on
and somebody needs to do something.
Thank you.
-: Thank you (muffled speaking).
Operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Ian Kaufman.
Your line is open. -: Hi, good evening.
Can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can. -: Hie, thank you.
Good evening to our distinguished Commissioners
and the CPUC.
And I like to just quickly say thank you
to our state Senator Henry Stern
and my city council member (indistinct) for their remarks.
Briefly, so I reside in the city of Simi Valley
have the last several years.
Specifically I reside within the township circuit.
We were not directly affected by the most recent PSPS
we did have an outage that was equipment related
from a downed line or down pole.
Though I would like to briefly discuss
the PSPS that occurred on December, 7th,
it began at 7:05PM and ended at 4PM,
shortly after 4PM, the following day,
that was 21 hours without power.
The weather event for that period in our geographic area
largely ended at 7AM, which left us again,
without power for the remainder of the day.
I would like to thank Southern California sun
for their public available ArcGIS tool,
which allows us to see the circuits and how they're mapped.
And I haven't seen any correlation
between the actual circuit and the PSPS outage map
and how they map out what circuits
will be shut off through a PSPS.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that during the December event,
immediately after the PSPS event was initiated,
there was a substantial traffic collision
that occurred right down the street at Royal Avenue
in Sycamore, I walked down there,
and the lights were completely out
there were not in for a flash.
And in the most recent PSPS event,
right up here, right up the street at the intersection
of Los Angeles Avenue, and Sycamore,
West everything west of the intersection without
that everything needs to be intersection
was energized and work just fine.
But because the traffic control box,
the light control was on the side of the street,
the light was out.
And I did notice Edison had a beautiful 14 page PowerPoint
that they included with the hearing today.
But only two lines of that entire 14 page presentation
were dedicated to grid hardening.
There's been a lot of talk of,
we're making notification and battery backups.
(muffled speaking)
We in Simi Valley have had helicopters flying
over for months looking at inspecting lines.
And yet we still have to deal with PSPS in perpetuity.
So thank you very much to the CPUC for holding this
and I sincerely hope that you will take Edison to task
for their lack of action.
Substantial action on the station.
Thank you. -: Thank you.
Operator, next caller please.
(background noise drowns out speaker)
Operator, the next caller please.
I'm sorry, we're getting some background noise.
Operator can we bring on the next caller, please?
Robert, can you assist?
I don't seem to be (muffled speaking).
Robert: President Batjer, our next caller is Jeff Greer.
Mr. Greer. -: Thank you.
Robert: Mr. Greer, you may speak.
-: I think we need to go on to the next caller, Robert,
if you could please.
-: President Batjer? -: Yes.
Robert: Our caller is Laura Daniel.
Miss Daniel you may speak. -: Thank you.
Laura: Hi, this is Laura.
So I think SCE's client list is pretty energized
as I listened to my neighbor's speak.
Thank you for getting us all together.
As I listened, and it was funny,
because I thought I had a very unique observation
that I think I've heard the last 15 people
or so dance around.
And that was
is kind of a specific measurement, specific actions
and clarity on how to fix the problem, not report on it.
So, you know, I don't, those were the things
that you know, I think, you know,
I appreciate all the work done on notifications.
But at the end of the day, I think if we had a service
that worked as we would like it to work,
there would be almost no need for notifications.
And so as I listened and I had been upset enough in the past
that I will go on and on and on about all my statuses,
but that I spent some significant amount of time
on the SCE website.
And so the presentation that they gave tonight
I'd actually happened upon in trying to understand PSPS
and trying to get to the criteria for calling it
and it's never really exactly spelled out
the process which was talked about today is.
But what was missing from this call for me was
specific, measurable quantification and actions and driving.
I think it's time to stop hearing
what SCE is planning on doing or thinking about
or wanting to do world class or any of those soft words.
And I think we need a specific set of measurements
that says we're making or not making progress.
And I kind of think that that it's gotta be pulled out
of SCE's hands at this moment and ended the PUC's.
I've heard a lot of over time letters and reporting
and request and status, but no measurable specific.
And so I think it's probably time
that we move beyond politeness,
and into just managing the problem and managing the problem,
according to some agreed to metrics.
And as a customer, I would like those metrics
not to be a percentage of the total population
because we have such a big population percentages.
-: Daniel, I'm sorry, but your time is up.
Thank you. -: Okay, I got to say
what I want to keep, thank you.
Bye, bye. -: Okay, thank you.
Bye, bye.
Operator, next caller, please.
Operator: The next speaker is Susan (indistinct),
your line is open. -: Hi, can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can. -: Oh, great.
So glad I was up.
I was getting ready to give up.
But anyways, thank you for having me.
I'm the public safety manager for city of Malibu,
and I wanna echo what everyone has already said.
So I'm not gonna repeat that we've experienced the same
thing with communication issues,
especially for our community members
confusing and conflicting messages.
I just wanna offer a couple things
that I really hope that the CPUC
will consider in terms of PSPS
is that maybe one of the factors that needs to be considered
when SCE is concerning PSPS is
the location of the potential ignition
where they're looking at the circuit or the segment,
is it an area that could actually cause
a large regional fire, as opposed
to a very small localized fire.
We have one segment in town that is repeatedly shut off,
and it's on PCH by the beach,
it's literally would if there was a fire
with very, very small localized fire.
To me, if you're gonna do something as drastic as PSPS,
it should be in those locations where they are historically,
the areas where large fires begin, like for us,
it's gonna be all on the other side of the hill
or in the middle of the Santa Monica Mountains,
as opposed to along the beach, when the wind is blowing
any potential fire towards the ocean
as opposed to towards residents.
And when I've proposed this, usually their answer is,
well, we don't want any fires.
Well, you know, we all agree with that.
We don't want any fires.
But when you're talking about a drastic measure to just PSPS
maybe it should be reserved, just for those areas
where there is the potential for a large regional fire
and looking at historical fire data.
The other thing I wanna encourage is that SCE needs
to tighten up the communication to the government agencies
like we submitted several, you know, points of contact,
which I happen to be one.
And I work with our Government Relations Officer.
And it's been great.
But then there's other people in SCE
who talked to other people in our city,
and then provide other information regarding a PSPS,
which conflicts with what I get.
So then it gets forwarded to me
and then I have to run around trying to de-conflict it
and find out and some of the time,
our government relations person has not been given the same
information that another person in SCE has
and has already given to my public works director.
And it just causes a lot of running around.
And I feel sorry for my government relations person
because I feel like he's being left out of the loop.
And so I think that needs to be tightened up.
And that can help a lot because this last round,
I feel like we wasted a lot of time just trying to find out
which information is the correct information
since we're getting information from two sources at SCE.
So those are my two suggestions for you,
thank you very much.
-: Thank you for the call.
Operator, next caller please.
Operator: That is Melissa Kovich.
Your line is open. -: Thank you.
Can you hear me?
-: Yes.
Yes, we can hear you. -: This is Melissa Kovich,
the Legal Director of the Center for Accessible Technology
and active party in the proceedings overseeing
the de-energization process.
I'd like to note that while SCE has repeatedly said
that it's reached out and consulted with stakeholders
and interested parties.
I've never received any outreach from any representative
of SCE asking about the constituency I represent,
which is people with disabilities and medical needs
who are impacted by their de-energization efforts.
I agree with what President Batjer said very early
this afternoon, that it's not enough for SCE
to talk about what it's going to do in the future.
The failures of this year well into the utilities
use of de-energization has been severe,
and they need investigation and further action
by the Commission.
I'd also note that a number of the officials who spoke
earlier this afternoon said that they believe
that he does not take responsibility
for turning off the power lightly.
I'd like to say I'm not so sure.
I believe that SCE has been extremely Cavalier in both
its execution, and its reporting about power shut offs.
And it's displayed a remarkable lack of concern
about the impact particularly on vulnerable customer groups.
I've repeatedly advocated for the need for utilities,
not only SCE, but most pointedly at this stage,
to balance the harm and considering
whether to turn off the power.
It's something that's been neglected in the reports
that SCE provides except for the most minimal list service.
So SCE has moved from acknowledging that these outages
are an inconvenience,
to acknowledging that there are hardship.
But there's no recognition that there are
a true safety risk, particularly for people
with medical vulnerabilities to whom extended power outages
provide substantial harm to their health and safety.
And finally, SCE has displayed inadequate consideration
of those with medical vulnerabilities.
They're far behind the other IOUs,
both in terms of giving notice, providing support
and distributing batteries.
In fact, they've really acknowledged no effort
to improve these capabilities
until this emergency hearing was called.
So it's not enough to rely on medical baseline,
which isn't an income based program.
There really needs to be substantial work for
medical vulnerable, medically vulnerable customers.
And I'd like to urge the Commission to follow up
with an enforcement action to assess real penalties
for failing to follow through on their obligations to SCE.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Melissa.
Next caller please, operator.
Operator: That's James Rosser.
Your line is open. -: Yes.
Hi, my name is James Rosser.
I'm with the Topanga Coalition for emergency preparedness.
We're an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County
in the Santa Monica Mountains.
I co-chaired the emergency management taskforce
with the LA Office of Emergency Management.
We have a long history of working together
with the agencies and preparing for disaster.
We have written to Edison when this whole thing started,
we gave a list of considerations
and concerns that we had some of those
concerns were fire suppression,
of course and the pump systems, traffic flow.
We live in an area that
very small community, there's approximately 11,100 residents
there's one main road through,
we are often compared to Paradise.
We have a lot of the same plans that Paradise had.
We have evacuation zones, we have the same alert system.
Our concerns are in a wind driven fire from the north.
It cuts off all exit from the canyon,
which leaves us with one means of transportation
to get out of the canyon and that is down to PCH.
The fire department has long looked at this issue.
They told us that it would take approximately
one and a half to two hours for a wind driven fire
to burn from the north straight down to the ocean
through Topanga and they estimate it will take approximately
five and a half to seven hours to evacuate folks
if they're no problems.
So obviously the math doesn't work.
And we're very concerned.
The other problem that we have, of course, is communication.
We have no cell phone towers, we have very limited.
Our file system also requires power.
So when the power goes down,
all forms of communication go out.
We experienced that during the Woolsey,
when shortly after the Woolsey started,
we had an unrelated non PSPS outage for 30 hours,
most of the community was unaware there's a fire burning,
the sheriff's department had to go through
on public address systems notifying folks about that.
So it's a huge problem for communication up here.
We wrote along with a couple of the other organizations
in Topanga to Edison in September of 2018
with all our concerns and considerations to this date,
none of that had been addressed the communication issue,
we still have no communication of any kind
when the power goes down.
None of that has been fixed.
The water pump situation for our water tanks
exists here as well.
We have the county's water system.
If the power goes down, they don't have adequate generators.
They have to borrow the generators from other
public works, agencies
and a faster fire that doesn't work for us.
None of these things have been completely
addressed or mitigated.
In the most recent outage concerns were the PSPS list.
We are TSep is the organization that pushes
out this information for our residents.
No one else does it for us specifically,
the number of lists we get are in the hundreds
of consideration list,
it takes hours to sort through that stuff
and find the relative circuits if we can find it.
We spend hours trying to figure out what circuits
are in Topanga as well.
When we do get communication during these last PSPS
is it's been sporadic, non targeted and only goes out
to a minority of the residents.
-: I'm so sorry,
but your time is up. -: Okay.
One last thing.
I just want to say that, that I keep hearing
that this is the way it has to be.
And I just wanna point out places like Chicago,
the Windy City, they don't turn the power off.
They build the infrastructure
to handle the conditions that exist.
And I think it's something that's long been neglected
and needs to be taken care of here as well.
Thank you Commissioners for the opportunity.
-: Thank you.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Arielle Strauss.
Your line is open.
Arielle: Thank you, good evening.
My name is Arielle Strauss,
I'm regulatory counsel for small business utility advocate.
As we appreciate that the Commission
has initiated this inquiry.
And this evening we're hearing from customers
about the enormous harm caused
by SCE PSPS management in good condition.
The problem with PSPS events we're discussing here
and not unforeseeable, we've been talking about the need
to address the first the fire risk, first in 2007.
And we have seemingly made very little progress
in making these PSPS events more manageable
and better for the public.
In fact, they seem to be getting worse.
It seems that SCE is choosing between providing safe
or reliable service, but not both.
We just start out with the perspective that the scope
of SCE shut offs are not acceptable,
regardless of how good they are, or become
and notifying people.
As to a negotiate with SCE and a previous (indistinct)
to require SCE to conduct assessments and surveys of impacts
of PSPS events on small businesses and the feasibility
of durable solutions, including undergrounding.
SCE also continuously commented on the post PSPS
reporting events that they do not include
the required assessment of whether de-energnization
safety benefits outweigh public safety risks
for the loss of power.
The weighing requirement is not merely
for reporting purposes, but rather the standard of care
that SCE must use to justify decisions de-energize.
SCE asserts that it only shuts off power
as well as last result,
and in the interest of public safety.
However, we have not seen any metrics whatsoever
used by SCE to balance safety such as risk posed
by lacking traffic lights,
and innumerable other foreseeable hazards.
SCE discussion this topic is conclusively shifting
and frankly laughable for not so deadly serious.
Today and tonight, I have not heard SCE dress address
its justification, nor ever for any questions
from the Commission on this topic.
Presently we have no assurance as a special matter
that PSPS events are actually initiated
only when necessary in an interest of public safety,
rather than may be taken to avoid wildfire litigation with.
(indistinct) assets Commission seriously scrutinize SCE
and determine whether SCE conducts any meaningful analysis
to ensure PSPS events are the appropriate public safety
choice because we have no credible evidence
that they in fact do this.
Thank you again.
-: Thank you Mr. Strauss.
Next caller please operator.
Operator: That is from Christine White,
your line is open.
Christine: My name is Christine white,
I live in Agua Dulce say where I train horses
professionally at a facility on my property.
These shut offs must stop now.
Our power has been shut off due
to PSPS eight times in September.
The average length of the shut offs has been 26 hours
with two being 38 hours.
It appears all of the power poles
and wires have been replaced here in my Canyon.
So it doesn't seem like it's necessary
to even turn them off.
We're on a well so there's a total loss of water
when power is off.
This means we don't have the ability
to fight even a house fire or more to start.
Also for many people there is not water
available for livestock.
It is not realistic to use a generator for many reasons.
Most women elderly or disabled people are not capable
of starting or maintaining a generator.
This requires physical strength and knowledge.
Running a generator requires constant supervision.
The person may have to stay home from work
and lose sleep at night.
The cost of running a generator is about $30 a day in gas
which is not reimbursed.
We would need two generators on our property
one for our well and one for our house.
Generators are very expensive purchase
several $1,000 for one which can run most appliances,
and it costs money to hire an electrician
to hook up a generator properly to a house,
there was a terrible electrical risk turning on a generator
on and off properly with regard to the power coming back on.
It is criminal to turn off power,
and to expect people to use a generator
for powering their home or business.
Also, it is a major hazard for 1000s of people
to be driving around with several gas cans full of gas
in their cars, and filling hot generators with gas.
Thank you for listening.
-: Thank you for your call.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: That is Josh Gray, your line is open.
Josh: Thank you, I'm calling as a private citizen.
And I had a few written remarks.
But I just figured I'd rather share a few basics
where I'm currently living on the floor
in the valley of Simi Valley.
So I can't keep groceries in my fridge
because I've lost hundreds of dollars already.
And with constant threats of losing power and then being
without power for days, at times, it's not worth buying.
And then the system to refund is oftentimes broken,
or it's overwhelmed,
and becomes impossible just try and track all this.
So I can't even keep groceries.
I also have to choose between exposing myself to COVID
in order to work at a location outside of my home,
when I've been directed to work remotely from my home.
Or I can choose to lose my job, my health insurance
and my rental during a global pandemic.
It's a catch 22.
I know my households mental health has plummeted
in these past few months not having power,
or being under threat of losing power,
at least a third of the time in the last two months.
I'm actually moving out of Eastern Simi Valley
because the situation is simply untenable.
We can't stay where we are,
we're going to lose our jobs under this pressure.
And I will also say I'm lucky I have a savings
I can destroy in order to fix the failures of Edison,
my neighbors, and also a lot of the other communities
aren't so lucky two active crises
is too much for people to handle.
We can't handle COVID and consistent loss of power
and the threat of losing power.
The investment in infrastructure
has been discussed for years.
This is a failure in long term planning.
And I'm simply too exhausted to talk more.
I've been on this call for hours.
It's a shame that this is one of the few limited times
for the public to voice his frustration.
This is absurd.
Thank you.
-: Thank you for calling in.
I'm sorry for the wait.
Operator the next caller, please.
Operator: That's Marisa Rimsky.
Your line is open. -: Thank you very much.
Thank you, Commissioners.
I assume you guys can hear me?
-: Yes, we can go ahead. -: Okay.
I'm gonna just kind of reiterate a little
of what everyone else has said,
retired, we're frustrated.
Enough is enough.
And I agree with the prior callers.
This is absolutely criminal.
And now to hear that Edison intends on raising their rates.
That's like a royal slap in the face
to all of its customers.
I believe that calling it PSPS simply seems
like a legal loophole that Edison is using
a get out of reimbursement free card for Edison.
Trust and believe, if resonance of Simi Valley
and other cities had any other choice for a provider,
they would certainly leave Edison,
there needs to be accountability.
There seems to be no consequences
other than to its customers, their rates go up
our suffering and personal and financial harm continues.
That being said, I implore the PUC
to hold Edison accountable to investigate
and impose monetary penalties.
I believe that this is the only way that actual positive
action and change will take place by Edison.
Thank you.
-: Thank you for the call.
Operator, next caller please.
Operator: Charles Him, your line is open.
Charles: Hi, thank you.
So PSP policy, as applied currently seems
to be a fairly new thing.
And that's why we're all here.
But many people have reiterated the fact
that we've had major wind events in the past
and no PSP policy that resulted in the past.
So what really changed?
That's what I'm not hearing much on this call.
Is this policy change, not the outcome of the PG&E lawsuit
that resulted in the $13.5 billion settlement of claims.
I'm not hearing much about this.
And therefore, the better and more direct response
to that concern doesn't seem to be addressed either.
I think SCE is correctly concerned about their
own negligence, exposure to negligence liability,
like with PG&E, in Northern California
but aren't addressing the issue of back negligence
in an open and transparent way.
The open and transparent way to address this
would be to discuss this with the legislature
and maybe other entities such as public utilities Commission
and directly with the ratepayers.
And we already have a rate increase in process
based on the news that I've seen.
So we are going to be seeing if SCE is adequately insured
against claims like those that occurred with PG&E
from the fires in Northern California.
But there's more I think.
We should be talking about defensive mitigation policy
or improvement of its enforcement.
I'm not really sure what the policy is.
I don't see the enforcement measures
for defensive fire mitigation.
Instead, we have PSPS, and we don't like that.
In Moorpark where I live, there's a lot of Edison property
mixed in with overgrowth all around the property.
I see it I live here.
I've seen some mitigation efforts,
but still see so many areas where trees and brush grew
over the power lines in SCE property.
Those are the exact areas where I see SCE red alert,
red alert monitoring whenever the wind kicks up.
So it's frustrating that we're not seeing a real open
and transparent discussion of mitigation policy
and a discussion with legislature
about how to improve our policy in that regard.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Operator our next caller please.
Operator: Next speaker is Gigi MacDougall.
Your line is open. -: Hi, can you hear me?
Hello.
-: We can hear you go ahead. -: Thank you.
Amazing love the different points of today.
I would like to thank Catherine Barger (indistinct)
and Mike Garcia offered to have actually educated
and helped me through these lockouts.
I've been shut down since October 10 times.
The least being six hours, the most being 38 hours.
I have a medical baseline.
I'm a diabetic.
I've been told by SCE anyone calling them
that I should walk to a market and buy myself some ice.
No, generator, no help with anything.
I live in one of the older communities
of Canyon Country, California.
Our platform is over 900 condominiums
which have been there since they were built in the 1940s.
They've never had a fire.
We're not near a fire danger area.
And no one can really explain what the situation is
of why we're being continually shut off.
My neighbor to block all the winds for me
continue to have power except for this last
shut off where there was high wind.
That's about the only time the winds got over
about 12 miles an hour here.
You talk about best practices,
I guess, from what am I missing,
they've been doing this since 2019, 2018.
They should be in best practices.
I have not seen good practices out of them.
They have funds that they've been given genuinely.
And they are not helping anyone they mail claim form,
they email claim form.
I received the letter within three days
that they were going to be investigating my claim
of food and diabetic influence.
At the end of a letter, they said they were denying my claim
that was the fastest investigate I've ever seen.
Again, the critical care people not even being helped.
They need to get someone in there to do a program evaluation
and not allow SCE to shut off the power until
they get no pay, especially during the times of COVID.
So not a new company.
This is ridiculous that this is being taken care
of the (faintly speaking).
(background noise drowns out speaker)
(indistinct) some new companies.
-: Thank you.
Your time is up.
Thank you. -: Thank you.
-: Operator next caller please.
-: Next speaker is Rebecca.
Your line is open. -: Thank you.
Can you guys hear me?
-: Yes we can. -: Okay, thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Rebecca and I'm a resident of Simi Valley,
SoCal Edison, public safety, power shutoff
are indeed tactless and deficient in meeting the standard,
its customers deserve.
All I heard from SCE President Payne
were a bunch of excuses.
But then again, what can we expect from an unscrupulous
business that has absolute monopoly in the delivery
of electricity for so many of our communities.
As a resident of Simi Valley,
the Santa Ana winds are a common occurrence.
And as we continue to devastate our environment
through various personal decisions,
but more exclusively as a matter of public policy,
the threats of wildfires will not diminish.
The continuous use of PSPS
seem to be the go to fix for SoCal Edison.
Nothing presented during this meeting gave me the impression
that they truly use the PSPS as a last resort.
SCE has been and continues to be negligent
and they need to be held accountable.
I echo Senator Stern's requests that financial penalties
and financial liability to customers be explored
and that CPUC come up with a plan of action
to make this happen.
Also, thank you Councilwoman Ruffolo Webinar
for requesting a comparison of frequently affected areas
and equipment upgrades in those areas.
In addition, I need an answer to the following things.
One, are medicine and food spoilage due to PSPS events
eligible for reimbursement?
I want to know how many claims you have received
and the total dollar amount for all the claims.
Number two, are claim for wage losses due
to PSPS events eligible for reimbursement?
I want to know how many claims you have received
and the total dollar amount for all the claims.
In Ventura County we have had over 24,000 people
at one time that were out of power.
Some of my neighbors reported the following on Twitter.
@MOA4303 was left without power for 32 hours
and lost wages.
Userdoor_s had no power for almost two days
and had to throw out all their spoiled food.
Nara_Marks lost power for over 30 hours.
To use PSP as consistently as SCE has done
is a complete failure.
We need short term fixes and we need long term fixes.
We also need SCE to be held financially accountable
for all of our losses.
Thank you for your time.
-: Thank you, Rebecca.
Okay, operator next caller please.
That is from Joseph Mitchell line is open.
Joseph: Good evening, President Batjer and Commissioners.
I'm Joseph Mitchell with the Musci Grade Road Alliance,
a community group in Southern California.
We've been involved in the power shutoff issue
at the CPUC for more than a decade,
and have been monitoring and commenting
on utility de-energization reports.
We've become increasingly concerned
with SCE PSPS activities in 2020.
We were encouraged that the Commission has taken note
of Southern California Edison's behavior
during the 2020 fire season.
The problems though run far deeper
than President Batjer's letter suggests.
Southern California Edison has chosen a remarkably
low threshold for shutting off power.
Damage reports from Edison show that most damage
is not due to vegetation but rather direct equipment
damage from weather events.
This raises the question of whether SCE is using PSPS
to cover for equipment not able to withstand
conditions mandated by GEO 95.
It raises the question of whether SCE
is using de-energization merely
to eliminate any potential wildfire liability.
The Commission should issue clear guidance
that the presence of fire weather conditions in itself
does not justify power shut off.
And it should reiterate its requirements stated in ESRB8
that shutoff is only justified in the event
that there is a clear and present danger
of damage to equipment.
The Commission should also require SCE
to provide more detailed post event damage reports
including photos and weather data so that the Commission
and stakeholders can see whether shut off was justified.
SCE's weather prediction capabilities
should also be reviewed.
The Commission has stated that PSPS events would be reviewed
for reasonableness, and that it would develop standards
for reasonableness review.
However, it has have yet done neither of these things
it should do so as soon as possible.
We would also ask the Commission to formally investigate
SCE's power shutoff practices in 2020
for potential violations of the public utilities code
Commissioned decisions GEO95.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Operator, next caller please.
Operator: Next speaker is Jeff Greer.
Your line is open. -: Hi, sorry,
I missed it before.
Anyway, I'm a resident of Big Rock Masons
and I'm on the
Board Of The Property Owners Association, up here.
First off, I'd actually like to thank SCE
for a lot of the work they've done here
and getting trees out of our power lines
and kind of making our community
a little bit more resilient.
One issue though that remains is PSPS
and how it affects communities dependent on electricity
for water supply.
In 1993 Topanga fire raised over 25% the 250 homes
in our community.
The power shutdown left us with no water
to contain structure fires.
Over the past two years, we have worked with both SCE
and LA Water District 29 on this problem,
bottom line for communities like ours,
diesel backup generation is the solution for communities.
The ultimate tech solution like these grids
and these batteries, which quite frankly
aren't robust enough to power the pumps
that drive the water for us here
are about five to 10 years off.
In the meantime, diesel generators have a 10 year
of usable life.
I think it makes sense for us to examine that, okay.
We are requesting SCE who has control over the grid
to provide year round reliable backup for communities
where electricity and water supply intersect.
Thank you very much.
-: Thank you for the call.
Operator the next caller please.
Operator: Next speaker is Reese Holland.
Your line is open. -: Thank you.
Thank you to the Commissioners and everyone in attendance.
My name is Reese Holland
and I am from Simi Valley neighborhood district
to the neighborhood represented
by counsel women (indistinct) those who called earlier.
Last year a variance a 36 hour outage.
I had to buy dry ice, I had to cook with an open flame
in my backyard.
Instead of accountability, SCE really just came here
to deliver a pile of excuses and plans
right here when we decided to put their feet to the fire.
Meanwhile, they have no energy surety.
We have no energy surety, we don't have any plans
for by the end of 2021.
We're tragically used to being disappointed like this.
SCE has been just disappointing us like this for so long.
The transmission ownership monopolies
that they have keep us from being able
to make market decisions to get a different provider.
SCE's criminally negligent and California must hold them
accountable for past, present and future negligence.
My first priority is the state just using eminent domain
to take it over and this applies all the utilities.
I'm ready for SCE to disappear.
I'm ready for California to take over the power
but until we're ready for that different posting
billion dollar years of profit except one
in the past decade here.
We've been suffering, we've been starving,
we've been losing money.
This is unacceptable.
We don't need an energy middleman.
We need energy surety.
Clearly more needs to be spent out of this pocket
of profits that come in every year to fix these issues.
We need to push all the infrastructure in underground
or upgrade it in whatever way so when the wind blows,
it doesn't get destroyed.
It doesn't get damaged.
It's not at risk.
This is a windy area.
It's always been a windy area.
It's also been an area that, you know,
indigenous people did natural burns
and stuff to keep it under control.
So it's an area that's known for fire.
These are not new issues we've known about them.
Localizing power to communities by setting up
localized renewable energy must be a priority.
We shouldn't be relying on a 10 mile circuit
when we have sun and wind everywhere
across the state year round.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Okay, operator, next caller please.
That's Michael Murphy.
Your line is open.
Micheal: President Batjer, members of the Commission
thank you for holding today's meeting.
My name is Michael Murphy and I am a resident
of Simi Valley.
I live in an area that has underground utilities.
Earlier during today's proceedings,
President Batjer referenced the detailed letter I sent
to the Commission outlining my recent PSPS experience.
The letter outlines a number of issues.
But I would like to focus my remarks
in Southern California Edison poor customer communications.
The communications I received last week were confusing,
contradictory, and at times absolutely erroneous.
I urge the Commission and Edison to work in partnership
to eliminate or minimize power shutoff
and maximize customer communications
that are geographically targeted, timely, and accurate.
Thank you for your consideration of my earlier letter
and my comments just now.
-: Thank you Mr. Murphy for your letter
and thank you for calling in today.
Okay, operator, next caller please.
Operator: That is Tina Roberts.
Your line is open. -: Oh, hi.
This is Tina Roberts.
And I just wanted to point out too,
if there's anybody that thought about what we're doing about
our property values that are completely tanking,
while this is going on when I built my home here,
and I will see, there was no power outages I've lived out.
I've grown up in Canyon Country, and in Odyssey 52 years,
and there's never been any issues other
than the past couple of years.
And now all of a sudden, my property value
will be significantly affected what I have to disclose
that there are PSPS problems going on all the time.
So I hope somebody is thinking about
whether they want to be involved
in a class while to go about it.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Miss Roberts.
Operator, are there any other callers on the line?
Operator: President Batjer, there are no more speakers
on a public comment telephone line.
-: Okay, thank you, operator.
With that a public comment period, we'll come to a close.
And I want to thank
Kevin, Jill and your executives from Edison
for participating today, coming, offering your
explanations and insights.
And I appreciate that you have stayed
and listened to your customers.
I appreciate that very much.
And with that, I'm sure there's going to be quite a bit
of follow up from me and my fellow Commissioners.
But I do thank you very much for your participation today.
And I know it's been a long afternoon,
so have a very nice evening.
Thank you. -: Thank you again,
President Batjer for setting this meeting up.
Much more to come from the other side.
-: Yes, indeed.
And from the PUC as well, okay.
Thank you all.
Bye bye.
Operator: Thank you.
That does conclude today's conference
and we appreciate your participation.
You may disconnect.