Planned Outages in California Set to Explode

Are planned outages a viable outage-reduction strategy?  According to PG&E – in addition to enhanced vegetation management, increased line inspections, and the deployment of sensors, cameras, reclosers and other technologies – the answer is a resounding yes!  But like many things in life, this solution has both pros and cons.

How Planned Outages Can Help Manage the Fire Risk

PG&E plans to deploy planned outages as a last resort under the expanded “public safety power shutoff” (PSPS) authorization it currently seeks (San Diego Power & Gas was the first California electric utility to gain approval for a PSPS plan after the 2007 fire season).  PG&E has already utilized PSPS (60k customers were proactively shutoff in Oct. 2018), but the company is now looking for an expansion of these rights.

In a nutshell, PSPS gives the company authorization to proactively disconnect power to parts of the grid when an analysis of weather, wind, humidity and vegetation variables indicates a higher-than-acceptable fire risk. 

Yes, this is an extreme tactic to be sure, but unfortunately most of the company’s other suggested tactics (segregating and isolating high-risk sections of the grid, constructing backup generator interconnection hubs in high-risk areas, expanding the use of microgrids, deploying state-of-the art sensors with advance analytical capabilities, etc.) will not be ready for the 2019 wildfire season.  Therefore, the focus on planned outages is essentially the only needle-moving solution possible for 2019. 

Click here for more details on PG&E’s proposed plan.

I doubt the utility’s nearly 5.5 million customers are happy with the proposed PSPS expansion – not only is not having power a major inconvenience, it can also result in collateral damage like heat-related deaths and food spoilage.  Although PG&E makes it clear that it realizes planned outages are inconvenient, it offers only a few suggestions to reduce the inconvenience.  These tactics include the provision of as much advanced warning as possible, real-time outage information, bill payment relief, centralized cooling centers for disrupted customers, and discounts on backup generators. 

I might sing a different tune if I were a PG&E customer, but I think the strategy to expand the use of planned outages makes sense – compared to massive forest fires that can take weeks or months to control, this approach seems like the lesser of two evils.  Time will tell.