(classical orchestral music)
Introducer: Welcome to the California
Public Utilities Commission.
This is a wildfire Safety Advisory Board meeting scheduled
for this day, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021.
Ms. Edwards, you may begin.
-: Hello. Thank you.
-: I think we'll start with Catherine.
Go ahead.
-: Thank you.
This is the first virtual public meeting of 2021
for the, this is the first quarterly board meeting.
We are going to spend the next few minutes
going over the technology to be used
during the meeting so that we can all start today's meeting
understanding the technology.
And so that we're all on the same page.
A summary of the different ways that you can participate
in this meeting can be found on the power on the PowerPoint
which can be accessed
through the website cpuc.ca.gov/wsab
This meeting will be live broadcast
with the normal CPUC live broadcast location
adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc
and it will be recorded for the future
if you, if you miss any part of the meeting.
To interact with the board during this meeting,
we have a phone number and an operator on standby
to cue the phone line.
We'll have an opening and closing public comment period.
The calling number is listed
on the agenda and the phone number is 1-800-857-1917.
And the passcode is 1767567.
When the joint, when you joined the call
you'll be in listen only mode.
If you'd like to participate during public comment
press * 1 on the phone, and you will be added
to the public comment queue and called upon
during the meeting by the chair with the assistance
of the operator.
Public comment will also be received
in the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board email inbox.
The email address is
WildfireSafetyAdvisoryBoard@cpuc.ca.gov.
Comments received here will be read into the record.
If they can't, if it can be read in under three minutes.
All comments will receive will be posted
to the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board web Board website
after the meeting.
In addition, the CPSC public advisor is on standby
if you're having any additional technical problems
please do not hesitate to reach out to the public advisor
either by email or phone public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov.
And that phone number is (866) 849-8390.
And with that, I'll pass it back to you.
Chair Edwards.
-: Thank you, Katherine.
All right.
Let's see.
Today is March 3rd, 2021.
It's the first meeting
the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board of 2021.
My name is Marcie Edwards.
I'm the chair of this meeting.
I'd like to begin as always
by thanking my fellow board members
for taking the time to not only participate today
that they do a tremendous amount of work offline.
And so I'm very appreciative.
Speaking of additional work I'd like to
congratulate board members, Jessica Block, Alexandra Syphard
and Ralph Armstrong for running a very
successful vegetation management workshop yesterday.
I think the modeling tools offered there are very
cutting edge, and I hope we consider some
of those tools going forward.
I hope we sparked some ideas
within the utility community.
Visitation management is an area we really need to
examine not only what we're doing,
but why we are doing it
and the impact potentially of other alternatives.
So we appreciate the audience
in yesterday's veg management, that too was recorded.
And so you'll have an opportunity to play it
at your leisure.
If you were not in attendance.
In addition
I would like to welcome Leah Harrower to our group.
She is new with us
and I was hoping without it people losing their minds
can we do 30 seconds Leah, on where you came from
and your background so that not only the board
but the audience is more familiar with you.
-: I'm, sure chair Edwards.
I Joined The California Public Utilities Commission in March
and I was on (indistinct) to the wildfire Safety division
before joining the, before joining the board.
Prior to that, I was a supervisor
at the California Energy Commission
in the office of Compliance Assistance and Enforcement.
And prior to that
I was also a supervisor in the supervising
a small team who were providing compliance assistance
and enforcement of the title 24 building standards.
And before that, I was lecturing history
of politics at the university of Sterling in Scotland.
-: Excellent. Thank you so much.
And we very much appreciate you choosing to
to team up with us.
It's it's an, it's an exciting board.
All right.
Speaking of Beth, could you lead us
in the pledge of allegiance please?
-: Thank you chair Edwards.
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands
one nation under God
indivisible with Liberty and justice for all.
Now I will turn the meeting
over to Katherine Stockton for our safety announcements.
-: Thank you.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, most
of us face more stress than ever before.
Many of us work from home.
So the boundaries between our home lives and
our work lives have blurred.
Recognizing these challenges,
I just like to take a couple of moments,
to invite everyone to take a deep breath
and try to let go of any of the stress you may feel
in this moment.
Thank you.
And so onto the next slide please.
the materials for the meeting today are available
on our website and that's cpuc.ca.gov/wsab
And on there, you'll find the minutes
from the December 9th meeting the agenda for today's meeting
and the PowerPoint presentation that is running
during this meeting.
Back to chair Edwards.
-: Thank you, Katherine.
I appreciate it.
All right, let's go over today's
meeting agenda very quickly.
We are going to start with public comments.
After public comments, we will discuss
and vote on the December 9th meeting minutes.
Subsequently we'll have presentations
from the CMUA utilities association on the 2021
publicly owned utility wildfire mitigation plan update.
Then we'll hear from the Wildfire Safety Division
on their activities.
After these presentations
we're going to take a quick stretch break.
And after the break we'll have presentations
from the Investor Owned Utilities,
providing overview of their WMP updates,
and then we'll open the lines
for final round of public comments
and then subsequently adjourn.
That having been said
if we can start the meeting with public comments.
I think we need to bump me up a slide or no.
Okay.
As mentioned, if you'd like to participate
in today's public comment, phone number is 1-800-857-1917,
with passcode of 17 67 567.
Please press * 1 on your phone to get
in the queue operator is the line open?
Operator: The public comment line is now open, yes.
-: Thank you very much.
First, let's get started.
Let's check the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board email box.
Katherine spots in.
Do we have any email communications?
-: We have no email communications at this time.
-: Thank you.
Now I'd like to check with our telephone operator.
Do we have any public comment on the phone line?
-: [Telephone Operator] We have no comments at this time,
but again, as a reminder
for those on the phone, if you would like to make a comment
please unmute your phone, press * 1
and record your first and last name clearly when prompted.
So I may introduce you and that is * 1.
-: I appreciate that.
I do wanna remind the audience.
Public comment is a critical part of our process.
We are always anxious to hear from you in your perspective
I'm gonna give it another 10, 15 seconds
in case anyone was thinking about joining
and decided they want to say something
and I'll ask the operator
one more time in a few minutes.
We'll see if anybody joined
Operator do we have anyone on the line.
Operator: I show no one
in the public comment queue with it at this time.
-: Thank you operator.
This closes public comment.
I'm moving to the December 9th meeting minutes.
The meeting minutes can be found
on Wildfire Safety Advisory Board website.
I'm sure that all the board members have
had an opportunity to read the minutes.
Do we have any edits or additions to the meeting minutes
at this time, board members?
-: I move adoption of the minutes.
-: You have a motion.
-: Second.
-: It's been moved and seconded
that we adopt the meeting minutes as is.
Do we have any, no vote?
Then this passes unanimously.
Thank you for that.
Moving to our next segment.
I would, again like to thank our, our presenters.
Sometimes I think people don't realize particularly
when it comes to associations,
what a load, these people carry.
Not only are they assisting in the development
of the presentations to us
and to the structure that is required or needed, rather,
they also work with the IOUs to ensure
that what they bring forward is representative
of the group as a whole.
And that level of have level
of occurrence can be challenging.
And I specifically like to tease out
Barry Moline for his work and also in CTA
for the California public power association
certainly Sacramento municipal utility district
and the (indistinct) state cooperatives,
as well as the other publicly owned utility partners.
Thank you again for all of your work.
With that I would like to turn it
over to Barry Moline, CMUA Executive Director.
-: Well, thank you, chair Edwards and board members
for the opportunity to be with you today.
As you said, the,
work that I'm presenting today is a
a collaborative effort on everybody's part.
So everybody that you mentioned, and
I appreciate your, your understanding and the
of the process that we go through that we sometimes
you know, call it herding cats,
but we're getting a lot of people's
ideas together, you know,
50 to 60 utilities and,
you know, it's an interesting challenge.
And, and that's what I'm here to do to
present with you today.
-: Thank you Barry.
-: The publicly-owned utilities
and the electric cooperative, or sorry
the utility and electric cooperative associations
created an informational response template
to help consumer on utilities
provide an appropriate response
to the board's guidance that you all provided
to us in December of 2020.
And this template has three parts to it.
And Joe, leave that page on,
just where we are right now.
And then I'll let you know when to go to the next page.
The template has three parts and I'm gonna name them
and then describe each one briefly.
So the first part is table one
which is the context setting information.
The second part is table two
which is cross-references to statutory requirements.
And then the third part
is what we call section three
which is the response to the board's guidance,
advisory opinion recommendations.
So, Joe, if you would go to the next page and
which is table one a little bit further down there
where you can see the beginning of table one and,
that's perfect table one does start here.
It goes onto the next page, but for the sake
of this conversation, we'll just keep it here
and then I'll ask you Joe to move it down just a little bit.
So table one, this is the context setting information.
This includes 15 descriptors that give the board a picture
of each utility and the defining characteristics
as they pertain to wildfire mitigation.
So where it's possible,
the descriptors are presented in percentages
so that the board and staff can see the extent
of various elements.
We did that rather than, than have checkboxes
suggesting the presence of a particular characteristic
like high fire, high fire threat area,
medium fire threat area.
but to show what the service territory in that area.
Yes, ma'am -: Quick clarifying question.
Is it a percentage of the number of customers served
or the percentage of the population within service
territory?
-: Actually, I think the,
that's a good question.
We would probably look at that as a percentage
of the square mileage of the,
of the service territory.
-: Mm, interesting, okay.
-: Yeah.
-: We probably need to get that clarified
so everybody's gonna use the same framework.
-: That is a good question.
And I,
so it's, if we go down to the,
to that's
yeah, like service territory is in these location area
like one that you see on the screen.
So it's specified in each section.
So if we scroll through a little bit, the
the type of characteristic, thank you Joe
is identified by the (indistinct)
So like service territory that's in,
based on total area.
So that would be a landmass
as opposed to customers affected.
Okay?
Right.
-: So basically what we're trying to do here
is show the level of the presence
of a particular descriptor.
So that moving through this section to the next table
that would be the next page, Joe.
And that would be table two
and table two is fairly straightforward.
This is a cross-reference of the parts
of the wildfire mitigation plan
to the statutory requirements.
And this will help the board,
will help reviewers to find information quickly.
So we just have that in there
if you're looking for a particular section
and it may not be easy to see in the table of contents
defined there by the statutory requirements.
-: That's very helpful.
I'm hopeful that its,
because what I found last time
in reading the plans is
that sometime they would make mention
of it two or three times
and I had to keep rereading it to find them all.
But my hope is that when they list the location
in their wildfire mitigation plan
that they do consider the list.
Every time they bring it up, that's meaningful.
It's not just a listing of, you know,
that doesn't matter but if it's meaningful,
please list the additional section page.
-: Okay?
-: Okay.
So, so when there are multiple references
identify those multiple locations.
Right?
Okay.
Thank you.
And then moving to section three.
So Joe, now scroll a little bit further and
keep going.
This is starts at the bottom here on the right.
This is generally the area right here.
-: Okay.
-: So this is, you can stop there, Joe,
but this section is multiple pages
and this is just a sample.
This is a narrative segment
and it reflects the 14 recommendations
from the boards advisory opinion.
So each of the 14 sections
allows the electric utility to provide a narrative
and a narrative response basically.
So each utility would provide information as appropriate
to their local circumstances and also relative
to the content of their 2020 wildfire management plan.
So, so that has already been filed.
-: Wow!
-: So that's where the meat of the
of the response would take place.
And so I conclude the, you know
the POU and electric cooperative associations
we're going to be working with our utility members
and encouraging them to submit this informational
updated with their wildfire mitigation plan update.
And that'll be transmitted
to the board by July 1st of this year.
So that concludes my summary.
And I welcome your questions, thanks.
-: I I'd, I'd again, like to comment on,
I'm well aware how difficult this is
in such a group of non-regulated freethinkers.
Who've done an amazing job on their own,
but to kind of think as a group
and pull themselves into this structure
to help the board is truly appreciated.
I wanna ask my fellow board members,
what do you think?
I mean, I happen to like,
this is really my first time doing it,
but I love the one at the beginning where
it does all the sorts.
So I don't know about you,
but I would spent hours trying to
find that information on the utility.
I like the cross-referencing
and I love the specific
approach to each recommendation.
We don't need to search it out.
It's right there.
So, Chris, did you have a comment?
-: Yeah, sure I would.
I do like the point you made
it's in multiple locations, there were general references,
and then specific explanations,
delineating what would be generally addressed.
And then what specifics are to address each
statutory requirement that,
that would help us in the examination of all 50
that we look at the updates.
It's important.
But this is a much improved template
because it actually allows the
the POUs to create a dialogue
to address the statutory requirements and give us context
that we then can evaluate, you know, in a more
in-depth matter.
Much, much better where, where
they're giving us a real look at their unique qualities.
Each one percentage.
I was very, I, when I reviewed reviewed it very,
very happy with it.
-: Yeah, no, I was, I was too.
Prior to going to the vice chair.
Can we scroll down again to the bottom
of the first section, Joe.
You got the table, take me to the bottom of the table
for the last kind of grouping.
Yeah, stop right there.
I wonder if it's valuable
and it may not be to differentiate
if you have to shed load due to an IOU PSPS
or if you get a call from the Call ISO telling you
and if I noticed it different ways last time
(indistinct) notified a potential loss of service.
Okay, so the last question there is perspective
the notified, but it didn't happen or it did happen.
I'm not sure the intent of that last question.
What are you trying to tell me?
Barry are you, are you hooked up?
-: Yeah, I'm
the, this is just simply the communication element.
Are they in touch with their investor and utilities?
Have they been notified that they may
there there's a lot of communication that goes on
between investor-owned utilities
and their customers just letting them know,
looks like the wind's picking up
these this next three days
could be a difficult timeframe, be prepared.
And it it's a reflection of,
have you been notified
by your investor on utility to be prepared that (indistinct)
-: Yeah, this was obviously been a big topic as well
within the IOU community,
because they hate to tell you that
no, it's not gonna happen, then it happens.
I mean and if you think about it
the public's experienced similar things.
People want information
and it's difficult because it changes
and all you need is a change in wind speed
or direction to completely wipe out what you just said.
So, all right.
So this is communication related only
and the one above it is actually lost service.
-: Right?
-: Okay.
Yeah, I wonder, of course it probably only applies
to a few utilities,
ones that are ordered separately outside of the IOUs,
because we have what's mud and LA
and IID and ones that may have been ordered to shed load
but not through an investor owned utility per se.
I wonder if they need a box or if there's so few of them
we can just remember that.
Only that important.
Diane, you had a question or a comment.
-: Thanks chair Edwards.
Barry, again extend our appreciation to all of your members.
This is fantastic.
I wanna follow up on the line
of inquiry that chair Edwards was just raising.
And this is something in my area of review.
And I'm noticing as we go through the IOU 2021 updates
the communication with the customer
their customers is highly defined.
And also there are indications of their communication
with the local government.
And one area that we
the a POU (indistinct) the communication mind
between the POUs and the IOUs.
And we'll also include the CCAs in there as well
because it seemed that
this feedback wasn't necessarily getting reported.
And we wanna make sure
that there are smooth and timely lines of communication.
So having these particular sections is really helpful.
So, thanks.
-: I appreciate that.
I appreciate that observation.
It is.
It's fascinating to me because when I was a city manager
the police and fire tell the utility
while we want 15 minutes notice for this
we want two hours notice for this.
And before utility has gone up,
okay I'm telling you it's a strong maybe which
definitely makes it difficult for report.
I understand where the eyes are are at.
Diane you were having some communication difficulty.
Did I cut you off too early?
Diane, can you hear me?
Hmm, hang on.
I'm texting her real quick.
Okay.
Well Diane will raise her hand
if she has something else or I cut her off too, too quickly.
Let me go through pictures of the board and see
if there's anyone else that has questions on the template.
Okay, seeing none.
I'm assuming Barry, that as we put this into use
if we find areas of confusion or a hole
that the (indistinct) community could just fall back and
and straighten it out
because we're not gonna vote on this.
This is just something that the POU is so
gracious enough to provide us to help in the assessment.
And so if we, if they'll just be amenable to changes,
that would be great.
Okay.
-: Iterative process, yes.
-: It all is.
I think I have Diane back again,
chair, vice-chair Fellman.
Did you get a chance to finish or was there more to that.
Seemed like there was more.
-: There was, there is.
Thank you.
And I think I missed the due to technical difficulties.
I missed the discussion
but I think it follows in with where we are now.
And Mr. Moline, I was wondering
if you could give us a ring through our advisors
give us feedback on what you found helpful
and how we can improve the communication directly
with the POUs in coming up
with mechanisms to fulfill our
statutory responsibilities as well as
completing, you know, and
and recognizing the PLU responsibilities
and governing board activities.
So thank you for that.
-: Sure, my pleasure.
So you're, are you asking me
if there's anything that we want from the board?
-: Yes,
-: Probably the, one thing that I think were all aware
of is I is the individual utilities are interested in
getting feedback on their plans, their individual plans.
I know that's on your, your long list of things to do
and there's a lot of plans.
And I know you've been engaged in, doing that.
And that's probably the only thing that
that they would like to see over time.
-: Thank you very much.
-: We, we certainly agree.
Part of our challenge now is we only have so much staff
in the individual reports will take
much greater focus on their part and on and on ours
but it is absolutely something we want to do to ensure
that the work product is,
is not just valuable, you know
schematically across the group,
but that individual utilities
have their own commentary that they can either support or
or refuse no immune.
Alright, if no one else has any questions
on this particular segment
I would like to thank very, very much
not only for his work on this,
but his work in presentation.
And I would like to move to the Wildfire Safety Division.
We're was Koko able to join us.
-: I am here, if you can hear me
-: Aha!, there you are.
I didn't see your picture up to now.
We would like to welcome Koko Tommasian.
He's gonna discuss the wildfire safety divisions activity.
And again, Koko, thank you
for taking the time to be here today.
Go ahead.
-: Now, thanks for the board for inviting us
and definitely appreciate providing an update
on the various activities that I'll cover
that the wildfire safety division has been doing
over the last several months to do.
Before I get started want to apologize ahead of time.
If I get some ambient noise.
This is one of the handful
of days that we get rain here in Southern California.
And I, my puppy woke up
from a nap and I can't put them outside.
So I get some ambient noise.
I will try my best to work through it
but I apologize ahead of time.
With that, if we can move forward
I don't know who's advancing the slides,
but next slide,
we can get into the next slide as well.
So I'll provide you guys an update
on various activities from the
WSC perspective, and I will cover several things.
One is an update on our compliance process
and operational protocols.
Another is the safety culture
assessment requirements and process.
And then finally, I will cover a couple of things.
One is the division's transition to the office
of energy infrastructure safety,
and finally a request
from the division to the board for comments on 2021 WMP.
So with that next slide, please.
So I'll cover the WSD compliance process
and operational protocols here.
There are a lot, there's a lot to cover here
and I'm going to provide a really high level briefing
and welcome any questions and happy to point folks
into additional resources as for further information.
So by AB 1054, the division is required to develop
and adopt and approve a WMP compliance process annually.
And so next slide, please.
With the issuance
this past November of resolution WSD-012
the WSD actually issued our first annual compliance process.
And in that resolution, WSD-012
we provide a high level overview
of the components and the WMP compliance process.
And this is in order to provide utilities
with more detail on what they're expected to report
to WSD for compliance purposes, as well as the
the WSC prepared a compliance operational protocols
which was released this past February last month
to provide some additional details on
for the utilities on that as well.
Next slide, please.
-: Hey Koko, can I ask a quick question?
On the previous slide is all
of that information and the,
the quantifiable aspects of,
the operational protocols
is that all available online?
Can the publicly-owned agencies and the, the co-op see it?
-: Absolutely.
So resolution WSD-012,
as well as any attachments are all posted on the WS
can be accessed through
the Wildfire Safety Division webpage cpuc.ca.gov/wsab
And then from that page
you can get to the compliance webpage
which has all the operational protocols and so forth.
-: Okay, so that has it literally like
in a chart form that people can
can arguably compare where comparisons are appropriate
-: Right, and we are also,
the division does publish
or we just began a monthly
kind of division reports
which include some outcomes
and statistics relevant to our compliance work,
as well as our mitigation work, but it's compliance as well.
-: Okay.
I would, I would ask quickly
and I hope Barry that you're still on somewhere.
You know, ultimately the discussion
of compliance with operational protocols is going to
bridge the investor owned and publicly owned community.
And I would respectfully request
that they be publicly owned utilities
start taking a look at the IOUs and
and thinking through what compliance thresholds are
in potentially aren't appropriate given the types
of systems that, that all of you are running
but it's a good time to start looking
at this rather than, than later.
So, sorry that Koko, please go ahead.
-: No, absolutely, you're welcome, any questions?
Thanks for that.
-: So, WSD-012, it was kept pretty high level.
It detailed components of the overall compliance process
and those are compliance assessments
and then essentially consequences for non-compliance.
The compliance assessments include
both annual and ongoing assessments.
So the WSD is required
by statute to produce an annual report
on compliance or what we call an ARC.
And that's an annual assessment
of each utility's compliance with their WMP.
And then in addition to that,
we also do an annual audit
of utility substantial veg management work
which is required by statute as well.
In addition to that
there are ongoing assessments that take place
which are conducted throughout the year
and those are happening in the form
of both field inspections and audits
and the results of those we share publicly
via our monthly performance reports,
which I was alluding to in response
to the previous question.
-: Yeah. Part of, part
of what I'm trying to think, not think through
I'm trying to kind of advanced communicate
without having vetted this through the balance of the board.
So please excuse me.
But the, the municipal being
non-jurisdictional entities are separate from this review.
And my, my hope is that they will also surface instances
of potential non-compliance and then discuss
to what extent that is reviewed
or any enforcement actions that are taken
via their own boards and city councils.
But I think it's very useful, the level of oversight.
I just want to ensure munies are looking at
potentially replicating something where
they do have oversight
and reporting responsibility outside
of the utility itself.
And I, I know that certainly some do already
but specific to wildfire management would be
would be very viable.
And again, Koko sorry, I'm stepping on you.
Go ahead.
-: No, not at all.
I'm actually taking notes as you're speaking.
So I appreciate the input and insight.
And then finally, just as far as it goes to consequences
the WFD is also responsible for working with utilities to
resolve instances of non-compliance with the WMP.
And this effort is done in close coordination
with the safety enforcement division of the CPC.
Should there be any sort of potential enforcement action
that the WSC would would like to pursue.
So with that next slide.
So the compliance operational protocols
those were released in February
and that document really provides the utilities
with more detailed instructions regarding reporting,
as well as sorry, we've already compliance reporting.
And the goal of that in the detailed instruction is to
improve standardization and improve quality of data
and communication between the division and utilities
as well as streamline those efforts.
So as to not create as many kind of back and forth
or unnecessary back and forth.
And so we have some clear lines of expectations
and communications, and obviously, you know
these processes are really in their nascent stages.
And so they're being developed and fleshed out in real time.
But, and this is just happened
you know, in the last several weeks.
-: Yeah, now everybody is working on the plane
while they're flying it.
-: Absolutely.
That's one of our go-to mottos here in WSP.
So next slide please.
And so here is just an overview of kind
of some of the reporting requirements that are found
in the responsive to the compliance process.
You have the quarterly advice letter
which is a statutorily mandated,
and it provides updates
on WMP initiative implementation as well as
is a requirement for a safety certificate.
In addition to that
we have the quarterly initiative update
which is an aggregated Excel format,
annual targets both quantitative and qualitative
of all the initiatives in the WMP
and then expected quarterly progress
with those quarterly submissions along
with cumulative progress throughout the year.
In addition to that, and I know I've
I've brief at least a subset
of the board on our efforts on our quarterly data reports
which contain both our spatial and non spatial data table.
And that really is intended to provide additional
context relative to WMP initiative,
both in progress
and also kind of geospatial location or information.
And then finally, as I mentioned earlier
you have the additional statutorily mandated reporting
on annual report for compliance.
And that's just an annual summary of the field
of compliance with its WMP.
Well, we can go on to the next slide please.
-: Before we hit the safety culture
before we hit the safety culture assessments
we could back up one, just a reminder
to those that are not familiar with the role
of the board who were created statutorily to provide
on the one hand, advice to the Wildfire Safety Division
with respect to the investor-owned utilities
and their wildfire plan
and separately to provide advice directly to the municipal
and co-op sectors on their wildfire mitigation plans,
which we have been doing.
I do believe that to the extent
of publicly-owned utilities create their own review
and potential enforcement structure
that they can use with their policy bodies.
I think that will help in
precluding someone coming in and saying,
oh, you know what you need to do.
I think it's better than utilities get their own
in place and this does provide a great template
and similar to geos, which, you know,
publicly-owned utilities are arguably not jurisdictional too
but some of them are (indistinct) good ideas.
So it's similar to that.
I just want to encourage the POU sector again,
to look at what's in place
and consider what their interpretation would be
in potentially how to put that in place.
Thanks Koko.
-: Thank you.
So we can advance, we can go forward two slides.
I'll kind of cover safety culture assessments
or you'll hear me or us refer
to them often as SCA for short.
So the final safety culture assessment requirements
were finalized and released in January of 2021.
So once again, all relatively fresh
just like I was mentioning
with the compliance operational protocols.
And the WSD's goal really with the SCA requirements
is to ensure that safety culture is embedded
in situations most relevant to wildfire risks.
And furthermore, the WSD's SCA really aims to
set a new standard for SCA via sharing of best practices
which is something we consider an important aspect
of driving forward improvement in
in this space in the utility sector.
-: Are the investor utilities required to have
safety committees by the PUC?
-: Yeah, so there are as part of the safety culture
or I'm sorry, safety certificate requirements.
There are a board of directors level reporting
on with safety committee and safety progress
as well and I was actually gonna cover this
in the next slide.
There is separate from this WSD's
annual safety culture process.
There is also another statutorily mandated safety
culture assessment process that's done on a five-year cycle.
That really looks (dog bucks)
(laughs)
that really looks more holistically at the culture process.
(dog bucks)
-: Yeah, I would like to comment on this,
the DWP put a lot of money
and effort into safety, culture assessments,
and I hope that there was some communication
back and forth with them
and your developmental phases,
because just, they put
they just put a ton into it.
And I think there's lessons learned from that,
that the division might benefit from.
So just think about that.
-: No, we appreciate that.
(dog bucks)
And my apologies for the
the ambient noise in the background here.
-: I'll be (indistinct) With it Koko
Don't worry about it.
Believe me.
-: Yeah, it was fortuitous timing
as someone rang the doorbell which set the dog up.
Okay, next slide please.
And so this is what I was mentioning earlier
with the distinction of safety culture efforts
for the WSD you know,
one of the important things is general safety culture
processes may not necessarily always cover all wildfire
specific instances adequately.
And so the goal of our FDA process is really ensured
that wildfire safety is prioritized by focusing
on instances like raising wildfire hazard concern.
And so those are really our efforts.
And this has been an ongoing process in collaboration
with the CPC division to work on this as well.
It's really figuring out how to reciprocate
and focus our safety culture assessments
which happen at a much more frequent clip
right annually compared to the five year CPC effort
but as well as fit into the broader process
and not to necessarily reinvent the wheel.
Next slide.
And so an important aspect of that is to really recognize
that not everything really applies to all the utilities.
And so I will talk about this kind of generally
but we've broken out kind of requirements across.
We've got the large, IOUs, PGD Edison, San Diego
we're presenting here to the board today.
And then we have our, what we call SMJU small
and multi-jurisdictional utilities that consists
of Pacific Corp Liberty and bear Valley North to South.
And then we have our independent transmission operators.
And so we've tried to not
have blanket requirements
that apply equally to everyone
and try to be considerate
of resources and expectations
and operational capabilities
of the different companies that we're regulating.
And so, as you see here, the four components
workforce survey self-assessment and plan summary
supporting documentation applies to everyone or
to all the large IOUs, the small utilities are
exempted currently from the self assessment
and plan a plan summary.
And the ICO's currently we're really focusing
on trying to get appropriate documentation.
And then one of the processes that's still kind
of TBD is figuring out interviews and how to potentially
incorporate that into our
culture assessment process as well.
And so those are be kind of on an as needed basis
as determined by the division
as a process, kind of begins to unfold and
be implemented.
Next slide, please
With that, I just want to show you guys kind of
this will be the last slide I cover on safety culture
but this is an overview of the directional timeline.
We released the final requirements
in January of this year, in late spring, this the deadline
for the electrical corporations to submit responses
to the requirements and then in the summer of this year.
So coming right off the heels of our WMP reviews
the we'll start beginning
to conducting our first annual safety culture assessment.
Next slide please.
And so with that, I think this is an opportune
like where is the safety culture process
and really takes us into this transitional period
for the division, which I'll talk about next.
And I just want to cover it kind of briefly
if we can go to the next slide please.
And so per our enabling legislation, AB 1054
the division is scheduled to transition
to the office of energy infrastructure safety
under the natural resources agency
on July 1st of this year,
as would be expected.
This transition process is extremely complex
and it requires broad
and extensive coordination among a variety of stakeholders.
And WSC is actively engaged in discussions
and partnerships with all the relevant stakeholders.
And currently we are expecting to be
on track to ensure a successful
and complete transition in July of this year to OES.
And so I wanted to underscore that as an important aspect
of the work that we're currently undertaking because 2021.
And we knew that dating back to 2020 was going to be a
an odd year for us halfway
through the year we transitioned to another agency.
We've been making preparations to support that
for many months in advance.
And we're hopeful that all
of those advanced efforts will lead
to a very successful transition in the coming month.
So next slide.
One thing that I do want to also cover is I'm sure obviously
the board is well aware that we had the large
electrical corporations file,
their 2021 WMP update on February 5th.
And we received supplemental filings from the large IOUs
last Friday, February 26th.
The division is currently
processing and analyzing and evaluating those 2021
WMP submissions.
We're working closely with Cal Fire
our Cal Fire colleagues we're also
actively engaging with the utilities to
resolve any open questions or get clarification
on various matters.
And with that, you know, the division really greatly
values the board's input and guidance on these matters.
And so I would like to take this opportunity to
formally request the board input on the 2021 WMT updates
for our consideration as we move forward
with our evaluation in, in coming forward
-: And like a week and a half to review them.
I mean, it's, it's eight inches of solid paper.
Not that I printed out my do, but, but Catherine or Aaliyah
do you know what the deadline is for us to respond?
-: The Wildfire wildfire Safety Division
has requested the end of March.
And so we have, you know, let them know
we will have a draft by then and the,
you know, and not, we haven't announced this yet,
but the, we're planning on having
a board meeting on April 7th.
And so that would be the date that the
hopefully the board would vote on the final.
-: And do you have a deadline to the board on when you need
you and me need their feedback to be completed
so that you can organize it, et cetera, et cetera.
-: Yes.
-: What is that date?
(laughs)
-: So we had, we requested any written feedback by this week
for board members, and then we'll be scheduling meetings
with the individual (indistinct) groups for next week.
-: Okay, just wanted to underscore the board that you're
you should be spending your free time reading those things
and getting your comments ready for your (indistinct) groups
and any highlights you need to,
you need to move forward.
I also want to give it a little bit
on KoKo's comments about the transition.
It does beg the question.
What about the wildfire Safety Advisory Board?
What are you guys doing?
We believe that we were going
along with the Wildfire Safety Division to,
oh, yeah, yeah.
There are discussions about the placement of the board.
It has been not a concern.
It has been an issue.
Certainly the vice chair has brought it
up about maintaining the independence of the board.
And so it's important
that we not get too far buried into the BSB.
Though, we always appreciate their help and support and
and capabilities that they
that they have in reviewing all this information.
But we do want to ensure that people look at us as,
as an independent resource providing suggestions and
and input.
And the second thing we ask is like many agencies.
We have the two analysts and so much
of our work has been done by the board members.
And it's really appreciated, but it's been quite extensive.
We have asked for additional staff.
I don't know if that will come to fruition or not
but we have requested it.
So those are the two.
And of course we don't have any money for the move at all
because that was never anything that was allocated to us.
And so we are working on that too.
These I know are all administrative issues
that the audience is perhaps not all that interested in
but I did want you to know
about the aspects of the board transition.
Let's see, do we, Koko where are you?
Are you wrapping up or did I cut you up?
-: No, my, my last next slide is a thank you slide.
And I thought I would like to thank the board
for your time and opportunity to present here
to you today is the board will oblige.
I would like to make one last announcement
and that's to note that our program manager
Melissa Spencer will be
on leave for the next several months.
And so temporarily filling her role while Melissa is out
will be our new acting program manager.
Her name is Lucy Morgan
and I'm sure you will all get to know her better
in the coming months,
but I just didn't want to put that
on the board's radar as well.
-: Great, so she's an interim for that.
And then Melissa should theoretically
regain her spot when she gets back.
-: Correct, we're expecting the list of back in October.
-: Okay, wonderful, wonderful.
I wanna see if the board members
have any questions or comments with respect
to the presentation.
Looking through here quickly.
I don't see that they have any additional questions
Koko we really appreciate it, particularly
because so much of our information is incremental.
That it's very helpful sometimes to get a broader picture
of what's happening.
And we certainly appreciate that.
So thank you very much.
-: Thank you chair, I appreciate the time.
-: Moving all the way to our stretch break.
Leah.
-: Thank you chair Edwards.
Welcome to our stretch break.
I encourage everyone to stand
up to turn off your video stretch, move around
should get some water and we will return at 2:15.
-: 2:15, excellent.
I will again remind the board to hit mute on your phones
and turn your cameras off for the period of time.
And I will see you all back here at 2:15.
-: Please press star one
on your phone and record your name and organization.
Clearly when prompted, you will be placed
into a queue in the order that you have identified yourself.
When it comes time for you to speak
I will announce your name and I will open your line.
You will have one and a half minutes to speak
to withdraw your question, press star two.
Please note that we are expecting a high volume of callers.
If we do not get to you right away to take your name
please be patient and stay on line.
(upbeat music)
-: Thank you ladies.
I appreciate that.
I'm going to move to our next agenda item
and I would like to welcome investor and utilities.
And again, thank all of them for, for joining us today.
We're gonna have representatives
from San Diego gas and electric, Pacific gas
and electric and Southern California Edison
on overviews of their 2021 WMT updates.
We hope that this will be useful information for all
of the interested stakeholders.
For our board members.
(indistinct) clarifying question.
Obviously I'm talking to myself more than anyone
and if you have more questions after the presentation
we can write them down
and ensure that they are transmitted to the utility.
So we'll make sure we get all of your questions answered.
And, and Jonathan, I always water your name.
So I'm going to leave it to you
to correctly pronounce your name
as a Director with Wildfire Mitigation & Vegetation
Management, San Diego Gas and Electric.
You're there Jonathan.
-: I'm here thank you chair Edwards.
I appreciate the introduction.
My name is Jonathan Waldermariam,
-: Waldermariam, Waldermariam.
I get it.
-: Yeah, that's good.
Thank you.
Well, I'm really honored to be part
of this meeting this afternoon to present the
wildfire mitigation program for SDG and E.
And we'll start with the first slide here
and talk about how we've developed
a wildfire mitigation plan for 2021
and some of the updates that we've included
in the next slide, please.
We have broken it down
into four areas that I'm going to present this afternoon
the risk assessment piece, which I want to share with you
how we've looked at and developed some models
for risk assessment and in vegetation management
how we've looked at our, especially in our strategy
and some of the advancements we're making there.
And then the grid hardening, what are some
of the ways we're prioritizing our hardening program
and then PSPS, how are we looking
at reducing impacts in scale scope and frequency?
And so with that in our next slide
I just want to start off with high level
cost of the program for SDG and E and the, you know,
2020 through 2022 total expenditures that we're looking
at is close to 1.9 billion.
And this includes the 2020 actuals.
And what we see here is
that grid design and system hardening takes the top marks
for the amount of spend.
So that makes sense, because we are putting a lot
of investments in our infrastructure.
We have next the asset management inspections,
as well as vegetation management
are the other high spenders.
And, and we do, I did want to highlight too
that in the data governance area
we did jump to a significant increase in spend as well.
So we're going to really explore more in that area.
Again as we go into the next slide,
I wanted to start off now with the risk modeling
and assessment piece that we looked at,
and we've always had a model
that we've developed back in 2015
called the warm model,
the Wildfire Risk Reduction Model
that we've used in the past
to look at asset level risk
and put plans together for grid hardening and reducing risk.
What we've done in 2020 is developed a wings model
which is stands for Wildfire Next Generation System.
And on the left
you'll see that we're looking at the likelihood
and consequence for wildfire risk as we've always done
but now included the PSGs risk as well
the likelihood and consequence from that.
And then we take this model
and it allows us to look at alternative analysis, right?
What kind of mitigation initiatives should we apply
to the various segments of line
so that we are able to get the highest reduction of risk
both for wildfire and PSPS risk.
And then we can aggregate the solutions
at a portfolio level, which helps us to look
at the combination of mitigation that we put together
for the various segments and look at the entire program
and see what are the total benefits that we get
for the cost that we put into and the types of mitigation.
So that's the approach that the new model allows us to take.
And then the next slide, I'll share a little bit
about the details within the inputs for wildfire and PSPS.
So we wildfire, this is
these are things that we've always looked at, right the,
you know, what are the historic ignitions
that we've had the wind speeds for the various segments
and the various vegetation densities that we have.
And so we take all of that information
to help us understand the risk
and the PSPS area and the model.
We look at the historic wind speed patterns
similar to wildfire risk
but we also look at the impacts to customers, right?
How many customers are in these segments?
What are the types of customers, right?
We have medical baseline or sensitive customers
and commercial and industrial or residential as well.
So we look at the type
of customers and we look at the history
of the RSW it's as well, the red flag warnings.
And so we're looking at all this in order to now look
at the output side on the right where we look at
allows us to rank the risks, those segments by risk
by which segments might have the highest risk
based on the inputs.
And then take the risk, the analysis free segment
and have a ranking for the risk of inefficiency as well.
And the RSC or the risk spend deficiency.
All it is, is a look at the initial risk that we started
with and how much we were able to reduce it by
and then over the total cost of the mitigation.
So we take each mitigation
and have a risk beneficiary score for it.
And then finally, the, the graph on the bottom
on the right shows, the portfolio level analysis, right?
We now graph the various we bunch
or aggregate the mitigations and the various risks.
And, and then we look at what are
what's the best combination or the best portfolio
that we we can have from this analysis.
-: Jonathan, a quick question.
I'm trying to understand from the PSPS portion
to the extent it feeds into the risks
and analysis, when you're not the one necessarily
spending the, spending the money
I, I'm trying to understand how the customer implications
from a PSPS, the loss of, you know, dialysis clinics.
And how does that feed into the wristband analysis?
Or is it, is it so difficult to quantify it's not in there?
Or how does that work?
-: Yeah, so we, we have a dollar amount,
average dollar amount for the
customers from the customer's point of view.
Right, and what kind
of losses are customers experiencing, alright.
Because it appear a yes action.
Yeah, and that's how we're adding that to the model.
-: I'd be interesting as the inputs to that
but let's not spend too much time.
I'm sorry, somebody else.
-: Oh, that was me.
-: Mr. Porter?
-: Yes, chair (indistinct)
I'm sorry.
Actually, how do you quantify the actual cost to the
to the customer right there?
-: Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry.
-: No, no, no, I'm done.
-: Okay, yeah, so there's some industry level standards
that take a look at the reliability in, you know
impacts to customers, right?
Outages and what, you know, what are some
of the average customer impacts that have occurred?
And we take that and look at the dollar amounts.
We also look at safety risks.
There's the financial impacts, the safety impacts, right?
And as well as, you know, the,
the environmental type impact.
So those are the things that we're looking
at when we're considering that.
And maybe, maybe we can come back with a more
detailed presentation that shares a little bit more detail
how those are developed.
-: I would appreciate that Jonathan (indistinct)
without asking for too much work, it's a real area
of interest for the board as far as how the implications
of PSPS are being gathered and, and quantified.
So we would in fact be curious
-: Okay, and, you know, just to highlight too,
we will take that as an action item,
but to highlight too, these are you know,
things are constantly being developed
and will continue to develop as well.
So in our next slide,
I'd now like to discuss the grid hardening portion.
And this starts off with a look at our top
10 distribution risk drivers.
So I've just Commissioned system on what are
the best drivers,
the vehicle contacts rise to the top
as well as vegetation contacts
and lightening arrestor damage,
and the list continues down that way.
And so these are kind of specific risk drivers
or incidents that have occurred on our system
at a higher level than others.
Right, and so we, we take a look at that and consider what
are the mitigations that we are currently taking, right?
What are the programs that we have, and can these programs
help mitigate for these risks?
Or do we need additional initiatives that we want to
consider to take care of some of these and
in the next slide, we'll talk another input that we
use and look at some of those risks drivers as well.
So, going on to the next slide, please, the other
-: Jonathan quick, a quick question, a quick question
on the last one is the, is the fact that lightning arrestor
failure is so high a reflection of its
of its ignition rate being high.
I just was surprised to see that at number three.
-: Yeah, so the lightning arrestor damage or failure
isn't what we're looking at is the
the ignition average ignitions caused
by the equipment as the main ranking.
So that third column there.
Yeah, that's how we rank it.
We do have, you know, in the first column
the average outages caused by these events.
And then we have the average ignition rate per the event.
So some of these have a higher admission rate.
For example the vegetation contact,
have a higher admission rate
than does the vehicle contact
or the lightning arrestor
but average the number of admissions.
That's how we're also ranking these risks.
-: Okay, okay, I got it now.
Thank you.
-: Okay, sorry, I should have been more explanatory there.
Then in the next slide with the other input that we
use is the efficacy of a wildfire mitigation.
So, so far, right, as we've gone through over a decade
of mitigation, what are some of the effects, right?
What are some of the gains that we've had
as a result of this?
And just as an example of the left there,
the bullets on the bulleted items, transmission
hardening, distribution, hardening, and so on.
These are the efficacy studies that we ran in 2020
and on the right there, the bar chart shows the transmission
and distribution heartbeat.
So the before and after hardening impacts.
So on the transmission side, we, you know
have had the incidents, if you will
or the faults that we refer to, right?
These are, these are failures that have caused an outage
not necessarily any condition
but we've had about six per year,
per hundred circuit miles.
We wanted to normalize it, right?
Not just take general numbers
because the numbers can be so small, right.
We're trying to make sure we have a good way
of sharing needs.
And when you look
at the Taft or hardening on the transmission level
it goes below one, right per circuit miles.
And on the distribution system,
we had before hardening, right.
We had about 12 events
per year per a hundred circuit miles.
And that came all the way down
to six per year, per hundred second mile.
So almost a 50% reduction
in fault, on the distribution system.
So this is another factor that helps us understand how
effective our mitigation programs are.
and be able to then apply it
to that RSE scoring that I've talked about
the risks spend efficiency, because if you remember
the numerator is how much risk reduction you're able to get
over the cost is the denominator.
And so that's the risk beneficent see
and allows us to now, you know, articulate
and explain how we're arriving at these mitigations
but also allows us to collect, calibrate our RSC scores.
And so in our next slide, we take two inputs
the risk ranking and the RCS, right?
And you, you see what this results in
is our ability to then have RSE scores
for the different mitigation programs.
So on the right
we have a table that shows Recloser Protocols
is our top RSE score.
Along with the various items that we have there.
On the left, we showed the hardening programs that we have.
These are more the programmatic approaches, right?
They don't have a high RSE because they're
they're a different program.
They're not as, you know, more direct to the asset
but they do provide a high level of RSE returns
and (indistinct) kind of that number
that we use to you know
the threshold for whether an RSE is good or not.
So now
-: What is it you're doing the sensitive fast protection?
Are you, are you just, are you using it to
reclose the basis that might've been too sensitive?
I'm curious why that's there.
-: Yeah, so what we're doing there is just
before a PSPS event, we changed the settings
on our sectionalizing switches and devices
out in the circuits to a faster trip setting.
What that means is that if there's any fault
the device is gonna de-energize or turn
off the power faster than it would normally would.
So if we did that under normal conditions
there'd be a lot more outages
and impacts to customers, but for, you know
high risk events, like, you know, high winds
Santa Ana winds.
We're able to change the settings
and take that risk of having a nuisance outage, if you will
but still, you know, that's better than having a wildfire.
And it allows us to have these, these protections.
-: Well, even if you haven't, I'll, use your phraseology
but as I loosened relay, those people would remain
out until you, until you patrol that circuit.
-: Correct, they will remain out until we patrol it.
And have
-: It seems like there's room there for some
I don't know, prioritize something.
It's just, I hate to take people
out when they don't need to.
I understand the additional protection in the impact
to the RSE, but, but it just seems that, I don't know.
Go ahead.
-: I do have one quick question.
-: Go ahead.
-: Same with the sensitive protections,
because that one's very intriguing to me as well,
because of, you know
I know it's set up for a red flag warning,
you know high wind events,
but it also, when we started looking
at protection to worker, so, so did he
settings had changed only those events
or any time to reclosers are taken out of service?
Cause I'm looking at it from a safety perspective
of the individuals working on the line.
No, of these protection settings where things
relay a lot quicker, you know, with lower the
the fault at the location where people are working.
So it's almost standard protocols that it's people
are working online.
They would take the, the reclosers out.
If those, if those settings were set at the same time
without additional protection to those workers
is that a correct statement?
-: So, yeah.
Let me, let me just walk through the process.
So for reclosing right.
We take out our reclosers and reclosers are used
for putting things back in service quicker, right?
If there's an intimate assault
the equipment will close back in and you know
half service back in.
So what we do in the high fire district
our practice is to take
out the reclosing capability altogether.
Now for the assessed and protective settings.
We only enact that, as you said, for some
an employee working, if there's a plant plant work,
we'll put the sense to protection settings on
because we don't want an employee to infer.
If they're working at hot
we don't want anyone to be injured.
So we take and put faster settings
so that employees are working safely.
But during wind events too
when there's no one working on the lines
we also have it set so that if there are events right
three contacts or other faults that occur on the system
that the segment of circuit can trip faster.
-: Yeah, that was just, I thought I'd do something, you know
that if they work together under, under the protocols
that it would add, you know
lower the ball current on, in certain sections aligned
which would help I'm looking more
from an ARC flash perspective.
And then the second part to that would be
when the sensitive, I mean if something
were to make a contact in the line
even with the settings quicker,
it would (indistinct)
are we saying that it eliminates all sparks
or where the Soviet spark it's just not as much.
-: It would, it would have been any fault on the system,
it would, it would not be as much, but also it turn it off
turn off the power much quicker
so that it wouldn't have the chance to, to, you know
grow into a bigger fire.
So it'd be snuffed out quicker.
-: Thank you.
-: Okay, board member Porter
Did you have a question?
-: No, actually Ralph covered it.
It's going to reduce the, the fault duty
which is going to actually reduce the risk of ignition
but it, but it trips faster again,
eliminating the possibility of it pumping in,
pumping fault into the ground
igniting grass or any other vegetation.
So just wanted to understand exactly why
they were doing that.
-: Okay.
-: I, I just have to make a point here
that doesn't actually lower the fault duty.
It, it's still the same fault duty.
It just lowers the total amount of energy.
That is a party to the topography
because it's shortened the period
of time that the system has faulty.
-: Yeah, correct.
-: Yeah, that's what I heard
So, okay.
-: Any other questions on this point?
Or can we move forward?
-: Well, I do have a question
on PSPS expected reductions are occluded.
Because I also saw the presentation
by Southern California Edison
to President Batjer during the CPC hearing
where they had linked hardening to PSPS reductions.
And so that means that there has been some analysis done
on the amount of risk reduction because of the mitigations
and therefore the being able to prepare for that
that they're being able to operate at a higher wind speed.
Is that included in this presentation or how you're
how you're doing it, that that's in line
with one of the recommendations
issued by the board last year.
-: Yeah, so, as I was saying earlier
we're looking at wildfire risk and PSPS risk.
And what we're not really talking
about here is not necessarily the threshold
but you know, the mitigations, like
you know, applying undergrounding, for example, right.
Eliminating some of the PSPS that would occur otherwise
if we underground and even covered conductor and, and using
you know, our risk reduction model to estimate what kind
of risk reductions we'd have on, on
or what kind of PSPS deductions we'd have.
-: We would love to follow up and discuss that in more detail
in the methodologies that in a couple of years
some is using, I mean, SDG is using, sorry.
Got the one utility.
(laughs)
-: Okay.
-: I watch who you're picking on there.
-: Right, right.
You can certainly follow up.
-: All right.
Anybody else?
Okay, let's move forward.
-: Thanks for the questions.
Our next slide here.
We'll keep going on the hardening.
And so we're taking these inputs and refining a hardening
starting with the traditional hardening.
This is something that we've done for over a decade.
Now, what we've focused on small wire
and changing from wood to steel poles to make sure
that our structures withstand high winds.
We have a program called prime
which looks at pole loading and looking
at our areas where we have the highest risk and HFTD.
And then the Cleveland national forest was a focus
where we did a lot of work on to harden the system.
As we went through the Cleveland national forest areas
because of the high risk impact
with this program, we are, we, we did
over 200 miles in 2020, and in 2021 and 2022
our numbers will come down because we're going to shift
to a different initiative, right.
A different methodology covered conductor
in particular and undergrounding.
So just wanted to start off with that.
And I'll go into more detail
as we look at the other mitigations.
-: Yeah.
-: And the next slide, we'll talk about some
of the other hardening programs that we have
and on inspections.
And this particular slide talks
about the additional inspections we have.
We have our regular inspections that we do
for detailed inspection patrols.
We have specific additional inspections that we have
for the high fire threat district
but we introduced two new inspections.
In 2021 is our drone inspection program.
We looked at all of the tier three poles
in the HFTD and took about on average 40 pictures per pole.
We were using this as kind of a learning opportunity to
to look at, you know, what the right mix of photos was
but also used our fire fault by legible workers, right.
To review the photos and prioritize them pre mediations.
And so with that, we recovered
over 37,000 poles in 2020.
Going forward into 2021, 2022.
We're going to look at tier two and, you know
spent that over two years
and cover the inspections for the through using drums.
Another new program that we did
with distribution and for inspections.
Now, we've always used infrared inspections
on our transmission system, but we now try in
2020 highlighting the tier three inspections using infrared.
And we're going to continue our work
in tier two now and see what these inspections result
in our tier three inspections.
We didn't find a whole lot, but we, we view this
as a very low cost way to look at additional risks.
So we're going to continue that in tier two.
In our next slide we'll talk about some additional equipment
hardening that we're doing and, and asset specific programs
besides just the general grid, you know
overall overhead hardening program that I talked about
we have the specific equipment mitigations,
expulsion fuses, hotline clamps,
SCADA Capacitors, lightning arrestor.
And this is based on that risk ranking
that we talked about right over the years
different items have come up higher on the risk ranking.
Lightning arresters are pretty high this time around.
And so we have a program in 2021, 2022 for that.
And our next slide
we'll talk about the coverage conductor program.
And this is what I talked about earlier
where instead of just doing bare conductor
we're now shifting over to coverage conductor.
It, it took us a little while in
in 2020 to look at the methodology
for installing covered conductor as a new technology
as well as the standards, construction standards for us.
And so that helped us develop it using the two
miles that we did that we're ramping
up to 80 miles over the next two years
and using that as one of our main ways to harden our system.
And then next we'll talk about our undergrounding program.
And we did 30 miles in 2020,
and those 30 miles were specifically
in high-five third district
and helped us to really refine our methodology.
Because some of the areas that we're dealing
with is difficult terrain.
There's new easements that we have to acquire.
We really can't follow the overhead lines.
And in our routing for the undergrounding
we have to go through the areas where roads go
and get additional easements around that.
So it's helped us kind of streamline our process.
And in the next two years, we're going to do
over a hundred miles worth of undergrounding
and make that a major part of our mitigation.
And this will help also with reducing PSPS
not just wildfire risk.
So as we go into our next slide
we'll talk about the Microgrids that we put
in place in 2020, and these four
on the left Ramona Air Attack Base, Cameron Corners,
Butterfield, Shelter Valley where ones that we used,
we energized to help keep customers in power
during PSPS events,
and the Ramona Air Attack Base,
one customer, but it is real critical one
where Cal Fire uses that base for air support.
And so we felt it really important to keep that
energized using now we use conventional generators in 2020
but we have plans to put renewable resources
on all four of these sites,
energy storage and solar in 2021.
On the far right South Campo and Sherilton Valley.
These are future developments starting in 2021.
We're going to have some additional sites
that we will put in place.
And these are communities
that we can keep energized during PSPS events
The regular service that they have
from overhead lines to traverse across, you know
a high fire threat district.
So they are de-energized
but when it comes to the PSPS events
because they're outside in the desert communities
and not immediately in the high-five third district
we're able to keep them powered using Microgrids.
And so that's been a benefit to the communities there.
In our next slide we'll talk about our generator program
and the Generator Grant Program
on the far left is basically a Bower of battery power
or energy storage that we supply as our medical baseline.
And in 2020, we gave, you know
close to 2000 grants for our customers
or to our customers and including some Amazon customers.
And the second column there, the Mobile Home Park Project
this is really a way to keep the community centers
or the clubhouses in the multiple parks energized
through our generator power cell.
And what this will do is help customers go
to the community center or the
the sub house to get, you know, to power their
through charge their cell phones,
or get information if they have a radio or TV there
as well as really, you know, a way to kind of shelter.
Next in our generator systems program.
These, this is a re rebate program for customers.
The customers about 1,250 customers took advantage
of the rebates and were able to get generators
from home (indistinct)
and we expect that program to continue
in 2021 and 2022.
The fixed backup power.
We were able to energize about 80 customers
with a fixed generator, meaning a fixed installment, right?
And these customers were selected based on the high number
of PSPS events they experienced in the past.
And so we'll continue that program
with over 400 installations this year.
-: I, excuse me, this is vice-chair Fellman.
Just quickly on Microgrids and Generators.
Are all these costs recovered
in your rates and approved already
or are your approvals pending?
-: These are newer programs, so the approvals are pending.
They said they will be submitted to the next GRC.
-: Thank you.
On our next slide, we'll now talk
about the PSPS events in 2020 and some
of the mitigations we have for those events.
Now in, I wanna highlight that there were, you know
11 red flag warning and PSPS events for the season.
We were able to avoid PSPS action for a lot of these
but there were four major ones that have, yes
we have some backs to our customers.
I want to focus on that area where
we highlighted December 2nd to the 4th.
That was where we have 70 over 73,000 customers
that we had to de-energize
or take a power shot off.
And that was a very high event time where we had, you know
wind gusts up to 71 miles per hour
43 of our 220 wind stations or weather stations
experienced peak records of high wind speeds
some reaching 94, you know, over 94 miles per hour.
And I want to highlight that we use the 99th percentile
or 95th percentile gauge for how high wind speeds get
on our weather stations and 126 of the 2020
weather stations reached the 99th percentile level.
So, you know
they reached their highest wind speeds, you know, that that
that they would reach in a lot in the record.
So a lot of, a lot of activity there
and our community resource centers,
we opened up 10 of them.
And there were what we did was
half drive-through service for customers.
And over 2,600 customers drove through cars
drove through and were able
to get a service and health fair.
In our next slide, we'll talk about some of the impacts
in a different way.
And I just want to highlight
the December 2nd through 4th events that you see there
with peak winds and the circuit segments, you know
the 73,000 customers we've talked about
we're about 80 segments of de-energization.
is what that is on the middle bar bar chart.
The damages and hazards found, you know
over 12 damaged hazards found as after our patrols
right before we started service.
And then the average outage duration is
over 30 hours there for the December 2nd to 4th event.
And normally we're able to keep these
at 24 hours max for, for the events.
But the past year was very, very eventful.
2020 was definitely a peak year.
And our next slide, we'll talk
about some of the mitigation measures that we took.
And this is a combination of undergrounding
the generators that we talk about
especially the whole house generator
because that's what keeps the entire home energized
during PSPs events, not the rebate program
which is more of a portable generator that only keeps part
of the home energized or the, you know, the battery power
for a medical baseline only keeps, you know
a single equipment energized
the Microgrid, the projects that we talked about,
the load transfer which means that we took a segment
of the circuit that would have been de-energized
and put it on a circuit adjacent, right.
We transferred the customers over to a different circuit
so that we could keep the lights on for those
particular customers, you know, with
with the fact that they were in a different area,
sectualizing meaning that additional switches that we put
on were able to be more surgical
and use the weather station information
on that segment to understand, you know
how much of that circuit we needed to de-energize
or shut the power off.
So taking all of that, we were able to save,
you know, 70 over 7,300 customers from PSPS events, right?
There was 73,000 customers that were impacted
but it would have been higher
had it not been for some of the mitigations that we put
in place in 2020, and each event is different.
So the event on the left there
or the pie chart on the left shows
that what we were able to save and the December 2nd
to the 4th event, but on the right, the December 7th
through the 9th event is different, right?
Different areas, different sectionalizing areas and
different customers.
You know, there were some repeat customers
but over 1700 customers were saved in that smaller events.
So again, some ways that we were
able to save some customers.
And then the next slide we summarize just some
of the ways that we're able to mitigate it just based
on the micro grades or the customer generators
but also using our weather station
30 second grid capability.
So I'll use the December 2nd
to the 4th event on the left again.
We talked about the 73,000 customers
that were de-energized in the blue.
We also talked about the gray
where the PSPS engineering solutions, right?
The 7,300 customers that were saved from PSPS impact.
In the middle that, that middle bar, the 5,899
those were saved as a result
of the 30 second reads that we're able to gain
from our weather stations.
And with that capability was in house this past year.
And what that allows us to do is
because of the 30 second reads, right?
Instead of the 10 minute reads
that we were having previously,
we're able to look at more detail of the wind gusts
and able to to know that whether
wind gusts is gonna be sustained
whether it's gonna stay
or whether it's going to blip and drop.
Right? So, so with that, because we were able to
see more closely on how the winds were behaving
we were able to avoid PSPS impacts to over 5,800 customers.
And that repeated itself on the December 7th
through 9th event.
On the December 23rd, through the 24th
the 19,000 customers that we're able to save
as a result of the FBI, the fire potential on that.
What that allowed us to do was even
though there was a red flag warning
we'd had a rain event just prior to that
and our FTI was low, so it wasn't elevated or extreme.
And therefore we were able to save customers
because of the fact that we have that FPI index
otherwise we would have hurt the PSPS customers.
And, and so that was another method that we use to
to reduce the impacts.
-: Okay.
-: Okay, next slide.
In 2021, we're going to use some of the same mitigation
the sectionalizing, the standby power programs
as well as micro Gates and undergrounding to
to get to about 3000 to 7,500 customers saved.
And the reason why there's a range, as I said earlier
is that each event is different.
Each wind event is different.
So we may be able to one event to save 3000 customers
and another event, 7,000 customers.
So this is the last slide
and I just want to end up with, you know, our mitigations
weren't just focused on the engineering solutions,
but also on the customer solutions
where we we've had a customer focus team,
come up with some solutions
on how to communicate better with customers
and help customers, including, you know, putting
out a PSPS App that helps give customers
more information during events, as well
as signage electronic signboards that we put out
in the communities where there was traffic,
so that people people could understand what communities were
going to be impacted from PSPS events and other tools.
So with that all, thank you for your attention
and I'll look forward to some questions later on.
-: Thank you, Jonathan.
I'm sure there will be some.
That was an information pack presentation,
and I personally and again, the board as well,
we appreciate your focus on
the PSPS and the potential mitigation activities.
And I think particularly I like going to the
the shorter term wind gusts
as sort of a last minute indicator.
I think that's a really useful strategy.
So thank you again, moving to SIPI gas and electric.
Christina, Louie is a principal
in the Wildfire Safety Program.
Kristina, are you here?
-: Yep, I'm here.
Let me go ahead and share my video.
Can you all see me yet?
Okay, (indistinct)
-: I can, we can certainly hear you.
I don't see anything.
Did you submit a presentation to the
for the guys to put up?
-: Yup, okay.
Can you see, can you see everything okay now?
-: Yep,
-: Okay, perfect.
Great, thank you.
So hallo everyone, my name is Kristina Louie,
as chair mentioned, I mean
I am a Principal Program Manager
with the Community Wildfire Safety Program team
at PGE
First I want to start off
by thanking the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board
for the opportunity to give a very high-level presentation
of our 2021 WMP.
If you could just scroll to the next slide.
Okay, so I'll start the presentation
by setting the stage of the, with some context.
The 2020 wildfire season was historic.
Five out of the six largest wildfires in California
history were all located in PG&E service territory.
As you can see on the right, on the map on the right
over 50% of our service territory is covered
by the CPC high fires sub district HFTD map
which is a significant portion of our territory.
And then in the table on the side
you can also see that nearly one-third
of our overhead power lines are NHSTD and
over half a million meter customers
that we serve are also in HFTD.
Wildfire risk only continues to grow
and it really requires a continuous focus effort to
mitigate these risks, to protect our communities
and customers across our service territory.
You can advance the next slide.
So our 2021 sub BNP outlined the strategic plan
and approach that PG&E is undertaking to
mitigate these wildfire risks.
The 2021 WMP is mainly an update to last year's WMP.
The wildfire Mitigation Activities
that we're undertaking largely remain consistent
with the three-year plan that was submitted.
So the pillars of our plan remained the same
which includes reducing ignition risk,
enhancing situational awareness
and reducing the impact of PSPS events.
Within the three colors for our 2021 WMP
PG&E has also substantially upgraded our risk quantification
and prioritization to help us best target and
optimize the critical work streams to reduce the most risk.
And then in addition in our 2021 WMP
we discussed the key learnings
from our experiences
and progress towards improvements every year.
And we also share that we continue to perceive
new technologies that could have the significant benefit
in reducing wildfire risks.
And the next couple of slides I'll be going
through each of the three pillars of our WMP.
So starting with the first pillar
which is reducing wildfire ignition risks.
This table highlights the key system upgrades
and changes that we're making to reduce ignition risks
and increase the operational flexibility of our grid.
There are a lot of numbers on this page.
So folks can read through this in detail
but I just want to call your attention to a few
as you can see
we continue to do enhanced vegetation management.
We have a goal of 1800 miles each for 2021 and 2022
and this is fairly consistent
to our numbers from 2019 and 2020.
We also continue to perform some heartening
with the goal of 180 high risk miles in 2021.
This is a drop from previous years
but that's largely driven by the fact
that we do have a new distribution risk model
and that did change our focus
on hardening projects for 2021.
For 2022, though we will be back on pace
to refill that pipeline
up to some heartening projects.
And finally, we also plan to replace thousands
of pieces of equipment throughout our system
including surge arrester and fuse replacements.
And we have a goal of installing eight Microgrids in 2021.
Next slide
For the second pillar of our WMP
which is focused on enhancing situational awareness.
We have a number of activities here
including operating our wildfire safety operation center.
That's the WSOC.
The WSOC serves as a coordination
facilitation and communication hub for wildfire activities
including using weather data to monitor the fire set.
It also coordinates PG&ES (indistinct)
at first would be appropriate operational personnel
and local first responders or safety officials.
In addition to the WSOP
we also are planning to deploy more weather stations
with the goal of installing 1300 by the end of 2021.
And we also plan to install more HD cameras
about 135 in 2021.
The goal of covering more than 90% of our high fires
but areas by the end of 2022.
And then finally
we continue to upgrade our meteorology tools
and leverage state
of the art satellite fire detection tools.
PG&E has partnered with the space science
and engineering center from the university of Wisconsin
which provides us
with customized granular feed of fire detection
from the next generation of geosynchronous satellites.
Next slide.
For the third pillar of reducing PSPS impacts in 2020
we met our goals and made huge strides
by making PSPS events in 2020, 55% smaller
and more than 40% shorter than they would have been in 2018.
We were able to keep over 628,000 customers energized
because of various enhancements
to our electric grid technology.
And then in terms of support to our customers
we made a concerted effort to provide greater support.
So some of the support included offering
community resource centers.
Last year, we had over 50,000 visitors to our CRC.
We deliver PSPS modifications
do various communication channels across multiple languages.
We also provided over 30,000 food packages
and distributed over 6,000 batteries to customers.
And we also received some positive feedback where 60%
of customers reported an improvement
in how PG&E handled PSPS in 2020.
Next slide.
-: Oh, excuse me again.
This is, this is based your comment.
I just wanted to say that this is such a great slide
and it's something we've been looking for,
the communicates the metrics and the improvements.
So thank you very much for including it.
I think this sums everything up with respect
to what PG&E goals have been
and how meaningfully you've been accomplishing them.
-: Thank You for that feedback.
That's, that's, that's great to hear.
So we are focused on continuing to improve our PSPS program
and reduce the impact on customers.
And as the site shows
we started the PSTF program back in 2018
we expanded it significantly in 2019
in recognition of the growing up by risks
but then also learned a lot of lessons
about how to improve execution
and better support customers.
And then as mentioned
in the previous slide, you know, in 2020, we made a number
of significant improvements to reduce the impact
and better support our customers do Vegas channels
like the CRC
and the food packages and,
and batteries distribution.
And then finally for 2021
we are focused on incorporating a vegetation
and tree risks into our distribution PSPS scoping.
And then we are also focused on opportunities to
support our customers that
are repeatedly impacted by PSPS events.
So that could be through backup power rebates
or we'll tell about chairs or replacements soon.
Next slide
So as I mentioned earlier in the presentation
our 2021 WMP is informed by a substantially
updated risk model.
Some of the improvements that we've made
to the model include using machine learning
and field expertise to inform a dynamic consequence model.
We also made updates to the ignition probability,
variable and consequence.
I used the better target key wildfire safety measures
and then our new models also placed a greater importance
on the consequence of wildfires over potential ignition.
And then finally our quantitative wildfire risk models
are supplemented by the underground intelligence
from our public safety specialist team.
The specialists are generally former fire officials
from Cal Fire and other agencies
who have extensive experience knowledge
and local familiarity that can further
inform our understanding
of the various risk factors and local concerns.
And the last slide.
So lastly, in addition to the many activities
that we are focused on delivering in 2021
we are also pursuing set of technologies that have
potential to substantially reduce fire risk
including the first two that are listed on the stage
which are the Rapid Earth Current Limiter and DTS
Technology, which we are installing
in HFTD portions of our system to learn more
about how they perform in reducing harvest in real time.
We will continue to leverage our technology to
give us greater visibility in our system.
And then now uses outputs from eight
of a personalization model,
which divides fire propagation
and consequence outcomes
based on available fields and weather,
and actually helps to inform the
risk event consequences components
of our 2021 distribution of risk model.
So with the combination of mitigation activities
within the WMP as well as update service modeling
and pursuit of new technologies,
you know we can see them take this seriously
and are committed to mitigating these risks
across our exhibits(indistinct)
And with that, I'll wrap it up.
You have any questions really want to thank you all
for the time and the opportunity to give an overview
of our 2021 WMP.
-: We appreciate it Kristina.
I just have one quick question and that
is when you have a circuit out
on PSPS expediting it's frustration.
Is it personnel?
Is it?
What do you think is the biggest detractor
from getting them back very quickly.
-: So I am not the expert on what, you know
our restoration protocols and, you know, the
the various conditions that affect our ability to
restore the power, but I'm happy to, you know, check in
with the appropriate needs and,
and get a sense from them.
Like what are the, the main limiting factors to,
to the restoration component?
I'd, I'd appreciate the follow-up.
Is there any other questions
for the board before we move
to the next presentation quarter?
-: Yeah, (indistinct)
The reasoning behind only annually inspecting structures
in tier three zone, one areas, and then going to a
every three year inspection in tier two, what is the
what is the data or, or what determined that,
that schedule.
What was used for that?
-: Well, was the, you mean, what was the rationale for that?
-: Yeah, yeah.
-: Okay.
Again, not, not the inspection's expert here
but I'm also happy to take that back to the team and
and try to figure out how we came up with that cadence.
I do know that it's been part of our plan
and from last year's at BNP, as well as this year
but I am not privy to the exact rationale
for how we determined that scheduling cadence.
-: That's right.
If you would take that back
for follow-up we'd really appreciate it.
Do we have any other questions from the board?
I see none, thank you.
Kristina we really appreciate your, your input.
And moving on to Bill.
I want to say Bill too, but please correct me.
The Managing Director of System
and Asset strategy for Southern California Edison.
Bill?
-: All right.
That's right.
You got it right.
Thank you.
Put on my headphones.
So hopefully you get a better audio.
Audio is good I hope?
-: Great.
-: All right, great.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
It's really a privilege for me to be sharing some thoughts
on our WMP with the Safety Advisory Board.
And I think in my discussion this afternoon.
I thought I'd take a slightly different approach
and focus more on the how
and the why rather than just the why?.
I think the, what part of our WMP it's pretty well
laid out in our recent updated filing.
And you can certainly read about that at your own leisure
although it's, it's quite voluminous,
it's 540 pages plus
but there isn't a nice executive summary about 10 pages.
And if you're looking for a condensed version
that gives you a good sense of, of what's in the plan.
So I thought I would reflect a bit on the
the how and the why, and then, you know
hopefully that'd be a value add.
So would that preamble maybe
if we go to the next slide,
let's begin our conversation.
So really reflecting back
on the recent years where we really stepped up
this much more aggressive wildfire risk mitigation approach.
Our strategy fundamentally had remained consistent
with what we have laid out in late 2018.
When we found what we call the grid safety
and resiliency program firing.
There are three key elements
as you probably all recognize to the fire triangle and
that corresponds to the three key pillars of our strategy.
First is the grid hardening measures to reduce
and eliminate the sources
of ignition associated with our power line.
And then second really it's the bolstering our
situational awareness capability to be better
prepared to preemptively address the incoming
weather conditions that are more conducive to wildfire.
We started in aggressive approach
on deployment of the high definition cameras
and weather stations that are now expanding
into sophisticated weather modeling and predictions.
And the third pillar of our strategy really
is around enhancing our operational practices to go
beyond the traditional compliance requirements.
So for example, on the vegetation line clearing to
further reduce the burnable fuel that are adjacent
to our power lines
and things like inspection and remediation.
And I heard a lot about PSPS
obviously we're continuing to refine that protocol
and we'll talk more about that, that later
if we believe this strategy has served as well
and we're seeing the positive results
on the risk reduction perspective.
So we are continuing this path
but we're making adjustments along the way.
And our most recent 2020
and 2021 updates include included a number
of key differentiators that you see here on this slide.
I would say just maybe quickly highlight how
we have evolved our plan.
In this past year, we had made significant improvements
on our overall risk analysis and risk quantification.
I think that's really foundational to continuously
get better at risk reduction and enable the prioritization
of the various program measures that we have in place
by leveraging the available resources.
The whole idea is to maximize the risk reduction
in the most expedient way possible.
Second is expending on our risk inform inspection
and remediation program.
And the third pillar that it's understanding well
PSPS it's an effective mitigation measure.
We fully recognize the impact and frankly, hardship
to our customers and the communities and have been very
actively working further reducing the scope
and the impact of PSPS.
An exam for that is the finding ways
to accelerate the system hardening effort,
looking at circuit reconfiguration to
reduce the number of customers impacted
extending on a broad set of efforts
and add reducing the impact
of the PSPS to our customers,
including customer care program,
to further mitigate these impact.
And last but not least really it's advancing the application
of new technology and also in developing new technologies
such as artificial intelligence machine learning
that PG&E also reference and think San Diego also are
on this path as well.
Then deploying system sensor, events system sensor
that are able to monitor the condition of our grid
and allow us to preemptively address potential
or developing issues that were,
that we could be seeing on the grid.
So, In terms of 2021, I see here on the right column
these are some of the key differentiator building
on the previous successes we have.
First and foremost is the
the risk analysis factoring the PSPS risk.
There was a lot of discussion about this already
but the idea here is to provide a more level playing field
in terms of waiting the, the priorities, a sequence
of system hardening measures by factoring in the safety
reliability, and financial impact of PSPS to our customers.
We've also involved evolve our inspection strategy
and planning and also the readiness
for potential additional inspection.
So think of it as a strive team that go out there and find
and fix problems that are specifically targeting
potential areas is a concern that could be the result
of weather dependent outcomes in the coming months.
If we don't get enough rain
sort of the dry condition continued to persist.
What are some of the areas
of concern that have the greatest risk to us?
The idea here is to be ready
to be able to deploy these type of
find and fix activity very quickly.
As we get closer to the peak of the fire seasons.
We have grouped our high fire risk area
into 11 climate zones.
And these zones are defined
by areas that have similar vegetation types,
similar weather conditions, typography
and past fire history
in the area system, hardening measures.
We're also taking proactive steps to have targeted
mitigation measures based on learning from our peers.
Example of these are focused on our power lines
in the transmission and transmission areas
and specifically aiming at the targeting particular type
of hardware or replacing a type
of switch that are our sub transmission lines
that are more susceptible to mechanical misalignment
due to the aging or warping of the Nanking course arms.
We are also significantly making investments
in information and data management.
There are massive amount
of wildfire risks related data from our operations.
Some are inspections system hardening measures,
agitation, inventory, et cetera
and having a robust set of data management technology
platform will really pay dividends
for us as we continue to advance our program.
And finally, one of the other key differentiator
for this year is a religion to expand our partnership
in supporting fires, suppression resources
in our service area, by supplementing additional areas
of suppression resources that are so critical to
prevent early onset of fire
from growing into one, that's hard to contain.
Now, this largely draws upon our experience we have
with orange County fire authority
in 2019 and 2020 timeframe.
This year in 2021, we are looking to identify a number
of strategic locations where we could position these areas
of suppression capability as part
of the so-called quick reaction force.
Something that's unique in Southern California in terms
of fire suppression is that five of the six counties
that's how fire contracted with, to provide firefighting
in the state responsibility area actually
within Southern California.
And the fact that these are contract counties
means that they have the authority to act independently
or in this case as a collective to make changes
in the process such as ordering and deploying resources.
So the creation of the quick reaction force
of air assets proposed is aligned with the change
in resource ordering, which have been implemented.
So we really appreciate the partnership
with our fire suppression partners
and these additional aerial resources could be
very significant in reducing the fire risk consequences.
Take it on the next slide.
Alright, so this next slide here really
is to give you a broader view
of some of the foundational key mitigation deployment
and it's laid out in just highlighting
the three categories of our strategy,
infrastructure hardening enhance operational practices
and situational awareness.
And so real quickly, I think the numbers speaks for itself.
Obviously we are, you can see, we have continued to
accelerate our cover conducted deployment
and expanded the coverage by over 960 circuit miles
in 2020 and going into 2021,
we plan to install at least a thousand miles,
hopefully more.
And the target for 2022, it's around 1600 circuit miles.
It's definitely a stretch
that this is a situation for us all, all hands on deck.
We feel this is a really important system
hardening measure, and could really make a difference.
That's why, why we're going all out on this.
In terms of undergrounding,
we're undergrounding circuit segments
based on several factors
that include the PSPS history
look at areas with limited egress routes, terrain
and community feedback.
In the area of inspection, we're performing inspection
on nearly a 200,000 distribution structure
and 335,000 transmission structures
in our high risk area.
And then we are actively remediating these findings.
So as I mentioned, you know, we're
we're also adding additional system hardening measures.
So I won't go over these in too much detail, but just again
building on the lessons learned we have in 19 and 20
and then obviously a big area for us to focus
on this year is finding ways to reduce the impact
of PSPS and actively looking for ways to
truly eliminate the potential for PSPS.
In fact, part of our plan is not only to reduce the
probability of PSPS
but through system hardening measures
do other type of circuits and configuration
looking for opportunity to remove
a sub-set of those customer completely away
from ever being impacted by PSPS again in the future.
We're continuing to explain our weather fleet
and the pace that we're anticipating is somewhere
in the range of 375 to 475 weather stations per year.
At this point, we have over a thousand weather stations
that are actively monitoring the conditions
and all of this information are being ingested
into our more advanced modeling supercomputers.
And the whole idea is we wanted to get much better
at weather forecasting and prediction
and that would be a tremendous help
for us to be able to be much more precise
in terms of operating PSPS in the future.
We could go to the next slide.
-: On a second?
-: Who is talking please?
-: Excuse me.
-: Who is talking please, I can't quite hear.
-: It's Ralph
-: Oh, okay Ralph, go ahead.
-: But just a real quick clarifying question
under looking at the cupboard conductor replacement
it sates a thousand circuit miles,
circuit miles versus line miles.
That, can you expand on that?
Just for clarification.
-: Yeah, thank you for that.
That's essentially the same, the differences
in some areas with a circuit consists of two phases
majority of the circuits are three phased circuits,
so there are three phase conductors
and we call that a circuit miles.
And in some areas there may be only two phases.
It's a single pay service,
only two to conductor (indistinct),
we also consider that as a circuit mile.
-: So, so just to make it simple, if there was
a thousand circle miles that contain two conductors
it would be theoretically 500 line miles?
-: No, that will be theoretically 2000 conductor miles
a thousand line miles.
-: Okay, thank you.
-: Yeah, so the, the numbers we're showing here
a thousand circuit miles, if it's
if all the circuits based on our prioritization
of the risk model results are all three phases.
That will be 3000 conductor miles.
-: Okay.
-: Equivalent, if you will.
-: Thanks for the clarification.
I just know some, somebody who's in line miles
somebody who's in your SEU circuit miles.
And just one note, there's a difference.
-: Yeah. It's an indicator in this case
it's a really somewhat interchangeable.
Thanks for that question.
-: Bill, this is board member Porter.
Did you have any, or have you experienced any constraints
on re-acquiring this covered conductor?
Because I know in the beginning when this was
truly an initiative to go through and,
and start re-conductoring with this tree wire.
-: Yep, yep, yep.
-: It was a difficult time for all three
of the big IOUs to acquire it.
-: Good, good question.
We actually have not had difficulties
because we recognize early on
that this is going to be a potential supplier constraints.
So we search the globe for covered conductor supplier.
And at this point we have a fairly robust set
of production capacity that had lined up in, in
in all of our aggressive execution.
So far, we have not run
into cover conductor, being a constraint
a supply to cover conductor, being a constraint,
would be well.
-: Okay, thank you.
-: Yeah. Okay.
I had one and it's a similar question to earlier.
We're talking about PSPS and in 2019, I get that.
And 2020 actually does the same thing,
2021, I get the circuits specific mitigation plans
in the more either section analyzers
or switches you can do to
carve people off from being exposed to PSPS.
There's now a movement that disclosure is required.
If you're trying to sell your house
that you are exposed to PSPS, and
that ramification is going to be fairly negative
to homeowners at large.
So, but my question being is,
I get were doing the same approach
with some mitigation and new customer care programs.
Is there anything being done to expedite,
to carve out those circuits that were taken out so PSPS
and if it's safe, expedite their inspection
and return to service.
Just trying to figure out
if we have to take them out, can we get them back faster?
-: Yeah, absolutely.
So let me first address the first question
in terms of accelerating the mitigation so
that we could remove them from possible future PSPS.
We were very actively looking
at that and it's part of our overall
PSPS action plan that we have recently filed with,
with the CQC as well.
And in terms of restorations, I think
that also heard the question earlier
during the discussion with PG&E.
I think one of the volt blocks that we have
is obviously post event inspection.
And in some cases that say the wind has subsided
at two o'clock in the morning,
the having adequate daylight
to perform the inspection safely
it could be a factor in delaying the restoration.
And in some cases we simply are not able to deploy resources
in the middle of night because the safety concern for them
typically, you know, if it's safe to do so
we will deployed resources for the inspection
but to be effective in some
of these more treacherous terrain conditions
to daylight it's best to perform these type
of inspection and always will get a better assessment
of what's actually out there.
So that could be a potential delay.
We are also exploring drone technologies to do these type
of posts, restoration patrol
but this is a really important safety factor for us.
We must make sure the lines are safe
before we can reenergize them.
So lots of effort or looking
at what can we do to accelerate the restoration process.
-: And this is, this is board member Porter again.
And when you say deploying resources
have you had any issues with the amount,
or the number of resources you can
called upon to do after event or
pre-energization patrols?
-: We have not run into that situation yet
and keep in mind most of our events or the scale
the size of it by relative comparison to our overall
sort of customer population insight is relatively small
and we intend to keep it that way.
In fact, we on a trajectory to further reduce
that in a meaningful ways.
So at least I don't see that in the calculus,
in the near future, based on the trajectory that we're on.
Again, we, we have examined the deployment of different
types of resources instead of the traditional
Lyman and trouble many of you,
well, we may be able to deploy some
of our more experienced service planner that will also
conduct these type of inspection to speed up the cycle.
And in some cases where access is difficult, we
would deploy air patrol to be able to do this very quickly
and having service in thin commender
as myself and some of these events.
Sometimes we'll queue up the resources in the middle
of the night, say for example, it's three o'clock
in the morning, knowing that the surrogate could come
out of the wind conditions, come daylight
we're marshaling the resources ready to go
at the first break of daylight.
So we could start the restoration inspection process.
-: Board member Mader, you had a comment or question.
-: Yeah. I just really wanted to call out that, you know
it's been a big change from, you know, presentation
in February of 2020 in that now the sort of, couple
of unison is considering hardening as a factor to
increase the wind speeds that they can leave a circuit
in power and not engage in the PSPS.
You know, this is in keeping with one of the recommendations
of the board, and I look forward to the opportunity to
follow up and learn more in detail,
how you've been able to make those calculations
to be able to determine when it's safe
to be able to raise the wind speed threshold.
-: It sounds like a question that we can put
on our followup list bill rather than answer right now
but I think it's an excellent inquiry.
-: Certainly.
-: Okay, do we have any other comments?
Okay.
-: Okay, so maybe we'll advance to the next slide.
And this is the one I think it's kind
of the important slide is,
this really sort of the foundation
of our overall wildfire risk mitigation approach.
And, and I think it's really important that we started
with a very good understanding of what are the driver
of the sources of ignition that we're seeing.
And this is accomplished through detailed risk analysis.
Fundamentally, when we look at initially associated
with power lines, there are two key factors.
One is the wind-driven whether events and
the other are the fuel conditions that are on the ground.
So that's incorporated into the weather events, if you will.
So these are the two key areas that we have.
And in order for us to tackle this
we really need to understand
what's driving these type of ignition.
So historically the pie chart here give you a sense
of what is causing the majority
of ignition in our service area.
And so looking at the five-year average, this chart
has been recently updated to include the 2020 data.
And so you see the two biggest portions
here is the context
on the object and the equipment and facility failures.
And this is why the cover conductor program is
such a foundational mitigation activity that we
thought was so important to do.
Keeping in mind, a cover conductor program is not
just replacing the cover conductor.
It includes additional assessment of, pole loading.
It includes replacement with Kloss arm
with composite class arms, whether it's equipment involved.
We upgrade those to the latest design standards
not only applying copper conductor, but also
we essentially are covering all the bare exposed parts.
The splices, the jumper leads the transformer bushings.
So essentially the entire poor head assembly
are being completely covered.
So it not just address the pie that's associated
with the contacts on object, but also cover a big portion
of the issue with that are under the sort of the yellow PI
under the equipment, the facility failure as well.
-: Right?
-: So now, now that we know how to address the issue
the challenge is how do we apply the resources
so that we can drive down the risks most expeditiously
and that's where this risk prioritization model comes in.
And I think you heard about that from a little bit
from PG&E in San Diego as well, but in our case
we really have poured in a lot
of energy and effort or two events, these analysis
and basically considers two parts
is the probability and the consequence portion.
And the way we looked at probability is be able to map
each of these type of fault events to,
to the actual asset level at the circuit
or sub circuit at the segment level.
So we can understand what are the contribution
from that particular circuit segment based on the condition
of the infrastructure itself, based on the type of history
and the type of falls that we've seen in the past
and applying a machine learning model to really
advance these prediction capability
just to give you an example, we've developed these models
for each type or each class that equipment transformers
overhead conductors switches and so forth.
I'll take, take the overhead conductor as an example.
Using machine learning model, we're able to predict the type
of potential failures up to four times, radar accuracy
then the traditional subject matter engineering expertise
if you will.
And so this has actually been validated using
our historical data.
And so this is a tremendous advance that we have.
So that's just one half of the equation.
The other half of the equation is truly understand
if you have a ignition that happens
at a particular location, what are the potential outcome
of that ignition as a result of that fire?
And a lot of factor goes into that.
Obviously yesterday's panel discussion got
into great detail and role modeling.
This is an area that we have a lot of confidence in
and we're also are open
to learning and continuously improve.
But the fundamental engine
behind this is the fire propagation model,
truly understand you know, what are the
once the ignition star,
how would that fire propagate?
How would that fire grow based on topography
based on wind direction, speed,
based on historical weather pattern that we see
at that particular location and all of this is layering
in the high fire risk area, that the circuits that we have
the fuel conditions that we know
about based on the datasets that we gathered
the population density and the structural density.
So we could model if an ignition occurs
in a particular circuit segment.
What is the outcome of that ignition
in six hours and eight hours
or even longer beyond that,
that serves as the basis
combining both the probability and the consequences
give us a sense of the true exposure, risk exposure
and what we're doing is using
that as the prioritization method for us to deploy.
So when we talked about earlier
we plan on doing a thousand circuit miles in 2021.
the art is to select
which are the next thousand circuit miles to apply.
And so this model is really a sort
of a key two key ingredient
to our overall risk reduction efforts.
Hopefully they'll give you a sense of a little bit of a peek
behind the sort of the analysis engine that we have.
We could maybe go to the next slide.
-: Yeah, so this is the area
obviously a lot of interest in PSPS.
And again, I just wanted to really emphasize
that even though PSPS is an effective mitigation measure
we completely understand the hardship
that this has resulted for our customer.
And we are very actively working
on further reducing the impact of PSPS.
In fact, maybe just the anecdotal story.
I just recently led I triply resilience task force
and develop a white paper around resilience
so only understand and appreciate
how important electric service is
to our modern day society.
Everybody depends on it.
It's basically a life necessity.
Maybe just to talk a little bit about some key principle
of how SCE applies PSPS.
First and foremost is we apply.
What's called the incident management system
with well trained incident management team to
conduct all operations relating to PSPS
whether it be initial onset of customer notification
in the moment decision-making,
the operational assessments
deployment of resources that we have
to pre patrol prior to
an actual incoming weather events
monitoring the conditions
at the circuits monitoring the condition of
the weather that are being reported
on the weather station real time
doing a PSPS events that are all managed on the
this incident command system with IMT members
in the management team members that are trained
in their specific task.
So that's key differentiator number one.
Second one is the decision making in terms
of whether to actually be energized is based
on actual grid and weather conditions
for individual circuits or sub circuit level.
We do not make these decisions based on forecasted whether.
So this is obviously an area
of potential confusion for our customer, because
in some cases we will provide the events notification
that there's a likelihood a customer may be de-energized
but we don't want to de-energize just
because we send out those events notification.
We only de-energize the field, the conditions are right
at the moment where we felt there's an imminent danger
to the particular location and the community involved.
And that's when we exercise that.
Beyond that we've invested a lot
of automation and sectionalizing technology
and we're using light using that to its full advantage
to be able to isolate only a small of the circuit.
So that has greatly limited the number of customers
that are being impacted each time we need to de-energize.
But all that being said
we recognize need to continuously improve.
And, and this really falls in, in two buckets events
in customer care program that I mentioned about briefly
this include, for example, we learn about there
are customer that are on well water.
And so we're providing a generator, a rebate for customer
on well water and high fire risk area.
And also looking at targeted deployment of system
hardening where we biweekly increase or elevate the
threshold where we need to actually exercise PSPS.
And example of that is we may be through our risk modeling.
We, the you're only looking at the fire risk
but going forward, we're combining PSPS risk
as overall equation in evaluating and prioritizing the
deployment of the system party measured.
And that's a result of, of our concerted effort
particularly in the PSP as action plan.
We're looking at circuit that have been frequently impacted
and diving in and understand what are some
of the tangible actions that we can take between now
and the onset of this upcoming fire season to aggressively
deploy some of the medication measures so that we
could reduce the chance of needing to call upon PSPS
for those particular segments
of customers that are involved.
So our PSPS action plan focus on five areas,
reduce the use the PSPS,
providing transparency in a decision
making process, mitigating the impacts of PSPS
keeping our customers and partners informed of the process.
And, and I'll finally last but not least enhance
and improve our post event reporting.
This is part of the ESRBA a reporting App
to each event that we have.
On the upper right here of the little dialog box here that
shows give you some stats of comparing 2020 results
versus 2019 results.
There is some, there are some pluses and there
are some minuses of overall in comparing to 2019
we are improving in the outage duration
33% reduction, 18 hours.
Average is what we saw last year versus prior year.
So that's 33% improvement.
In the 2021 year, our commitment is to, to have meaningful
and significant reduction on PSPS impact.
We looking at 20% or greater reduction in terms of number
of circuits or segments being de-energized,
looking at reducing the duration 35% or greater.
Looking at reducing the number of customers that are being
impacted by PSPS by 15% or greater.
And that's a commitment that we've made
and we're very actively working towards that goal.
Maybe if we could go to the next slide like it
how are we doing on time?
Yeah, I see we're coming up on time.
Just maybe provide a bit more
in terms of how we're thinking about applying technology to
to help accelerate and increase the effectiveness
of our wifi medication measures.
And this is really quite an exciting area.
So what you're seeing here are some example across
the various different domains
of wildfire risk mitigation measures.
These ranges from the latest sensors and cutting edge
imaging capability to artificial intelligence machine
learning to big data analytics.
I'll just kind of go walk you through this real briefly.
It shouldn't take very long.
So inspection technology on the upper left
Left, for example,
which you see here is a
multispectral image camera that is down
to the online helicopters, the imagers clockwise
in the top left, as you're looking at them
or a Sony 64 mega pixel was still imager right next to it.
It's a high definition video imager,
right below it is the video metrics, infrared imager.
And then there is a laser range finder and then sort of
around the clock, if you will is the decor,
UV corona imagery that are able to pick up
corona activity or ultraviolet discharges.
And then the image below the camera lenses give you
a visual rendering of the data being captured to
determine the clearances of this distance
between nearby vegetation and our power line.
And these can be displayed and situated
to give our veggie team a very quick view
of the potential area that needs attention.
In a top center we talk about
artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Here is another example we're applying this.
Then earlier I talked about using machine
learning to determine the probability
of ignition as part of our overall risk model.
Here is another example where using machine
learning to advance our capability
of detecting potential problems.
We're using these high-tech image
to capture and assess the condition
of the infrastructure that we're seeing.
But so far, at least previous to this advancement
would be lying in subject matter expertise to pull
up the images one by one, looking at the condition
and determining whether there's additional
action that are necessary.
That takes time.
And plus there is literally millions
of these pictures are coming in
just think about each one of these at 50, 60 mega pixels.
The infrastructure that's required to make this happen.
It's it's not insignificant at all.
So we're advancing analogy
an analytical capability to be able to quickly
assess the condition of the image it
within hours and days rather than weeks.
So we can very quickly identify potential areas
of concern and get that in the work order list
of activities and get to the
remediation much quicker.
Moving to the top, right of this picture
applying sensor and protective relay technology.
I think you heard about some
of that earlier, from our peers
but a couple of areas that are really exciting
for us is the distribution fall anticipation technology
and what we call the early fault detection technology.
So these are a combination
of the sector, essentially looking
at electric magnetic signatures
and trying to understand what's going on on the circuit.
Are there pre-fall conditions?
What you see here is a picture
of defects that are picked up by early fault detection.
It's basically a gunshot when on the overhead conductor.
Those typically will not get picked
up by conventional protective relay technology.
But in this case early fall detection
are able to pick up the discharge
they know as a result that the broken conductor strands
and as a result of this, we can deploy the resources to
to fix that right away.
Lower left hand corner there,
looking at fire suppression applications
deployment of fire retardants, and
and also obviously a little further out
are there some features state where automated drone
could help to deploy fire suppression agents
by very quickly, number one
detecting the location that the ignition
and snuck them out very quickly.
Lowers center (indistinct) early fire detection
data management.
Looking at combining not just the images
from our high definition camera,
but also satellite images
and using these all different sources to triangulate
and pinpoint source of ignition very early on.
And the whole idea here is to be able to get a headstart
in case there is the emission.
In the lower right-hand corner here
it's big data and analytics.
We have made some advancement in our smart meter
algorithm to be able to detect energized wire down
and particularly the so-called low side energized
wire down that are very difficult to
detect using traditional protection technology.
And we're extending that to
to look for other possibilities where there
may be other sensors that are designed
for detecting potential home wiring problems.
And (indistinct) big data may be an indication
of water network issues.
We're still very early
in the stage of exploring this capability.
These are some examples
of the various different technology that,
that we're looking at to advance
our wildfire mitigation efforts.
That sort of wraps up my presentation, but maybe just
the very quickly run through a few slides in the appendix.
So that just you aware of what's there,
that's if we could go to the next slide.
In the appendix section is the
this overall progress report.
Lots of number there.
Obviously you could take a look at that.
These are the key activities that we have accomplished
since the beginning of the program.
We go to the next slide.
Next two slides really is to give you a sense
of how we looking at this longer term
right beyond the more immediate years
what is the longer term trajectory
of being able to continue to drive
down the wildfire risk reduction
looking at big data risk analysis?
How do we optimize the resources we have if we go
to the next slide
with hardening operational practices
and situational awareness.
So the current focus between now and 2022 and sort
of the future potential focus that we have longer term.
And finally last but not least the slide
at the end is to give you a view
of all the different activities that we have
in working with WSD.
And as you can see here
there's lots of reporting requirements
and this may be a potential opportunity for us to look
at how do we streamline the reporting process that we have
across the board to, I guess at the end
of the day, across the state, there is limited number
of resources that we have working on this.
So thinking about how do we optimize the resource we have
I think will also help.
So thank you so much
for the time then I hopefully that provides some insights
for you on what SCE is doing.
-: Thank you, Bill.
Do we have any quick questions from the board members?
-: Okay.
Seeing none I'd like to thank not only Bill,
but Kristina and Jonathan.
Sorry for the ambient noise.
I just thank all of you for presenting.
I would like Katherine to inquire of the presenters.
If these presentations are such, we could put them
on our website.
I'd like to have them available.
They answer a lot of questions.
Obviously that'll be up to the respective.
I'll use like Katherine, you could pursue that.
I would appreciate it.
-: They are already up.
So hopefully there's no pronouns.
-: Wow!, I'm impressed.
That's like psychic.
Wow!, okay.
Excellent, okay.
Again, my thanks to all of you.
And I would like to now go to one of our advisors
Katherine Stockton, to give us a high level overview
of the board's work this year.
Katherine, if we are to make up a little time since
most of this is all going to be in writing and published
please feel free to just hit the highlight.
Go ahead.
-: Next slide please.
So, as we discussed earlier at the beginning of the meeting
the board is planning on releasing the draft
of its recommendations on the large IOU WMPs, March 31st
or earlier with a board meeting planned at this point
but it's not set in stone yet for April 7th.
And then now, since the WSP has staggered the
wildfire mitigation plan deadlines, we have an opportunity.
The board has an opportunity to review the small
investor owned utility and independent transmission
operator wildfire mitigation plan.
And the goal would be
to publish those recommendations,
but at the end of April, beginning of may
after that the wildfire safety division has requested
that the recommendations
on the investor owned utility wildfire mitigation
plan guidelines for 2022
be provided by the end of May.
So we'll see what we can do to accommodate that
that request if possible, we are not machines.
And then after that,
there's no statutory deadline
but the wildfire mitigation plans
from the publicly owned utilities come in
on July 1st, 2021.
And you know, there's so there's no deadline
but the sooner the better.
So staff at this point, we're recommending, you know
late third quarter or late September
for the advisory opinions
on the individual wildfire mitigation plans.
But like you had indicated Marcie,
whether that, you know
the individual plans is feasible, it depends
on among other things that transition to OIS
Whether the board gets another staff member and
and other outside factors.
-: Understood.
-: Is there any questions on this?
This is a very broad timeline.
And for the board, of course
we will have lots of internal deadlines.
-: We will release to the board.
Any questions?
-: This is vice-chair Fellman.
And I just want to underscore
that the staff has set a schedule
as a rather ambitious timeline.
And we are very much engaged in meeting the WSD deadlines
as well as the request of the publicly owned utilities
which we've heard discussed earlier.
So thank you to capture it and Leah for keeping us on truck.
-: Of course.
Okay.
-: All right.
Hearing no further questions from the board members
I'm gonna move forward.
As we end, today's meeting with a final round
of public comment,
like to take this opportunity to thank
both utilities and the public for their participation.
Again, if you'd like to participate in this final round
of public comments on numbers, 1-808-857-1917
passcode of 1767567
and you press * 1 on your phone to get on the queue.
So let's start
by checking our Wildfire Safety Advisory Board email box.
Katherine, do we have any emails?
-: One moment?
Katherine: Hang on just a second.
No emails.
Okay. No email.
Can we check with the telephone operator?
Do we have any public comment on the phone line
-: [Telephone Operator] We do.
Our first is from Nancy Macy.
If you would state your organization.
Nancy: Yes. Thank you.
I hope you can hear me okay.
My name is Nancy Macy.
I am chair of the Valley Women's clubs
environmental committee for the south Lorenzo Valley
the Valley women's club has been active
for 43 years in our community
and salmon in the Santa Cruz mountains, Santa Cruz County.
We are on nationally
and state honored five Oh one C3 organization involved
in a wide range of community issues and concerns.
We network with a wide range of people
in forested areas, over these issues, especially related
to PG&E's enhanced vegetation management
and the problems caused they're in.
You should know.
And probably you do because some
of you are very familiar with this area.
That power outages are routine
for residents in the Santa Cruz,
coastal mountains especially in winter.
In good measure, due to
decades old antiquated bear distribution lines for decades.
PG&E has been known for pressuring property
owners to allow trees to be cut down, to reduce the need
for legally required routine annual trimming.
This has been a problem for a long, long, long time.
And the rights of property owners
and homeowners have been ignored.
We strongly feel it is very important
that all ignition sources be addressed to
reduce all consequences of wildfires
and not to mention other problems
such as power outages and electrocution.
PG&E has overall through its wildfire mitigation plans,
it's earlier wildfire safety plans,
it's enhanced vegetation management
has overall failed to do so.
The massive investment of rate payer funds and tree removals
as a major part of its vegetation management cannot promise
to prevent trees remain to packing power lines.
It's very expensive around $2 billion a year
and it is environmentally destructive
with millions of trees being cut over the next few decades.
And they're talking, they originally were talking
about 30 million trees over 30 years,
so that's a lot of trees.
That is only going to address around 25%,
according to their own charts
of reported ignitions due to vegetation,
only by upgrading infrastructure at a much faster rate
will we be protected from the other 75% of 5% of fires
along with those vegetation fires specifically
to upgrade the 7,000 miles of barrier gauge copper wire
and high fire areas
that was reported back in 2013.
This is a real problem throughout the system.
Over 22,000 miles of this wire exist
and it is severely outdated,
unsafe, and should be replaced.
We don't even know how many
of miles in Santa Cruz County exist of, of that 7,000
but we're told we have researched very thoroughly
the issues, and this is a major problem.
We want to see that replaced.
Southern California Edison is doing it.
They recognize the problem about data conductor
and are replacing it at least four times the rate.
It's really disturbing how slowly
PG&E is undertaking this problem.
I wanted to also point out that the other issue
is that would help make a big difference would be to
actually install computerized circuit breakers
along the system.
There are various kinds available now.
A number of them are off the shelf, ready to go.
Let's get those up there and,
and get them working.
San Diego gas and electric
has actually undertaken to do that.
And one of the major problems is
that the California public utilities Commission doesn't even
have any requirements related to circuit breakers anywhere.
And its regulations geo 95 is is bereft of mention of,
any such equipment.
And that is a major failing on the part of the CPC.
You might want to mention that in your in your comments.
Speaking of fires, you know
we have been dealing with the CCU lightening fire
and it really is important that this board,
because of your extraordinary,
extraordinary ability to evaluate
and inform the wildfire safety division
and the public that you understand that right now
PG&E is under notice by Cal Fire
for five notices of violations
with hundreds of violations
because they have literally been
clear-cutting thousands of trees
post-fire and post emergency repairs
not only in there right away,
but far onto private property.
No notice was given
to landowner landowners who had evacuated.
We were all gone.
70,000 of us had to evacuate.
So no notice was given to all the fire victims.
There were about 1000 homes destroyed most
of them in Santa Cruz County and in this fire
and the people who came home to houses
but still had everything around them burned
were and equally just, you know, difficult situations.
They didn't remove trees just from their right of way
but far onto private property.
And when homeowners were turned and,
and came to groves of Redwood trees cut down on memory lane
and 200 trees taken down on a little over an acre property.
And all these trees removed in the,
in the Bonny Doon area
you know, gorgeous, huge heritage, Oak trees,
70 feet and 120 feet from there.
I guess they were just 70 feet Oak trees
from the right of way were cut down.
In spite of the fact that they had green leaves, thousands
of the trees were cut down after the landowners returned
and they had the, an erosion control specialists coming and
and telling them, leave the trees.
You need them to, to retain the soil.
Many of them will be restored.
They're gonna come back unless they are
in no explicit danger to your homes or to your lands
sites where you want to rebuild your homes.
You should leave.
-: If I could ask you to wrap up your comments.
-: I'm sorry.
Thank you.
So what I'm hoping I wanted to, you know, that we'll be
sending written comments and we hope you will have
the opportunity to look them over and we will be
including the notices of violation so that you
can evaluate how that kind of activity, illegal activity
can be mitigated through your comments.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.
And I'm sorry, I talk so long.
I appreciate your timeframe.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Operator, do we have any further public
comment on the phone line?
-: [Telephone Operator] We do have another,
and that is from Dan Courtney.
If you would please state your organization.
-: Thank you.
My name is Dan Courtney of LA Jolla, California.
I'm a member of the Sierra club
utility wildfire prevention task force.
I'm also a resident and property owner in Twomey County.
Similar to the last speaker we hadn't experienced
during the rim fire and fire burned through our, our area.
And we have a collection
of small cabins surrounded by Stanislav national forest
just five miles outside of the entrance
into U of 70 national park with old growth, Cedar incense
Cedar that is Oak Ponderosa pine and so forth.
And during the rim fire, I was escorted in by, by for
for wildfire check by deputies and found PG&E
actively cutting every tree tall enough
to the power line, even unburned trees, dropping them
into areas where there was still stumped,
fires, burning and so forth.
The Sheriff's department stopped them
but it's similar to what we hear in Santa Cruz.
My real concern is in hearing that PGE is going to
do actually less line hardening this year
than they had initially looked into.
I'm looking now at the wildfire community
wildfire safety program
winter 2020 progress report from PG&E.
And I see that the County
in 2019 had zero miles of system hardening completed.
They had planned for 47 miles in 2020, only got 15
yet 261 miles of enhanced vegetation management
in 18 and 19, another 86 and 2020.
So 22 and a half times as many line miles were done
with an answer vegetation management
as we're done with the line hardening.
And the issue with the lines is in this area.
For example, by my house
we have the old bear uninsulated wires, the line
the span right by my house has 14 splices.
It's still the burnt short wind power poles
the orbit by the room fire and probably previous fires.
I actually offered to chip in money towards undergrounding.
I was told the PG&E would not match funds if you know
taken from savings in vegetation management
over future years in winter maintenance
that would be totally eliminated obviously
by undergrounding.
I couldn't figure out why do some research
and it appears it's
because the vegetation management costs get passed
on to the rate payers or
to FEMA in the case of these post-fire burn area
clear cutting that they're doing
and the equivalent costs apparently come
out of the bottom line off the profits.
So that's a possible rationale.
The only one I could see that it makes any business sense.
The CPC, I think really has to step
up and start requiring PG&E to do a system hardening.
And it doesn't have to be all underground.
They could just use the space
or wire that so-called had to send an STG is using
they really have to do something
and they have to get this to be a safer situation
for all before the next several disasters happen.
On a different note related there's.
So PG&E needs aggressive
enhanced vegetation management means basically
marking any Tretorn if, if a power line
regardless of how far it is outside the right of way.
And they use very aggressive, hard ball tactics to do that
including threats and coming in with law enforcement
threatening to cut off power and so forth.
And in most cases
at least the ones we've looked at most of these trees
quite a few of these trees were healthy, old growth trees.
So PRC 4040 or was it you guys all probably
know this 4795?
I think it is point B does give them the right to cut
down trees outside there right away.
However, it does not exempt them from damages.
Also the property owner is where he is allowed
or the grant to have the right
to advanced notice and also a right to be heard.
Currently. There's no mechanism for that.
I hired an arborist with long experience
and tree mortality to look at the trees
to PG&E are marked by 14 acres.
He concluded that 85% of them were healthy
and would live at least another 25 years.
With this report, I then contacted the CPS CPC
and said okay, I mean, I wanna go
into refusal and have somebody to look at this.
And apparently there's no proof.
I was told that the PG&E vegetation area manager
would be the one to consider the report and the objections.
However, that's the same person
in this case who put the flags
on the trees and Mark them to be cut.
So there seems to be a void
in terms of having an objective third party
qualified government agency involved
in a process for the more than noticing process
is lax in that a lot of times people come home
or they get up and their
their trees are down and maybe there was a door hanger
or there was a little, you know
fine print thing in the envelope with the bill
but there has to be really, you know, direct notification
and then probably 30 days
to inspect the trees prior to them being cut,
as well as the process where if they
if the property owner so desires
there is an objective party to review
that also some entities that go
to regarding damages claims for damages
which are troubled damages because the,
the courts rule that you must first exhaust your,
your regulatory recourse.
Anyway, I've talked long enough.
I appreciate your time and all that you're doing.
And I really hope that you will make recommendations
to strengthen the the line heartening
because that's the only real solution
by the way, this, this system of clearing large tunnels
through the forest might be counterproductive
for what I'm hearing in terms
of the creating the wind shear
the wind tunnels and accelerating the rate
of speed that the flaming brands are traveling
which is spread of the fire is so far out
advance where the firefighters can get
to at such high rates of speed.
So line hardening line hardening line hardening.
Thank you.
-: Thank you for your comments.
Do we have a, telephone operator
Do we have any other public comment on the phone line?
-: [Telephone Operator] There are no other
commenters at this time.
Thank you operator.
We appreciate everyone's commentary
and this closes the public comment session section
excuse me,
-: chair Edwards, this is Jessica.
I just would like to say
I should acknowledge our public commentors, Mr.
Courtney and Ms. Macy.
They made comments to our vegetation
management workshop yesterday
and I just want to thank them both for, for their comments.
-: So I appreciate that.
I'd like to thank everyone
for participating in this virtual board meeting.
Again, we're here to serve the better interests
of the state.
And so we appreciate the opportunity
of hearing from you,
hearing a different perspective.
I would like to make a special shout out
to both Robert Stanford and Joe Haggar and our team
of IT professionals, for making this meeting box.
Well, making sure we could all get connected.
They do a lot of work that you can't really see,
but they do it pretty.
They do it very professionally.
And finally, I would like to thank Governor Newsome
for continuing to keep wildfire
as a high priority in the state.
You know, his support has continued inquiry
certainly demonstrate to me
that this is something he wants to continue to see.
A very dynamic progress made on.
And with that, do I have any closing comments
from any members of the board?
Take a quick look here and make sure I got everybody.
I don't see any hands or inquiries.
So with that, I would like to have a motion to adjourn
or you'll stay here.
(laughs)
-: I like to make a motion to adjourn.
-: Thank you, second.
-: Second.
-: Thank you.
Are there any objections?
Hearing none, I would like to
adjourn this board member, and again
thank you very much for your participation.