CPUC Proposes Additional Guidelines for Utilities To Minimize the Impact of Public Safety Power Shutoffs
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in its ongoing efforts to ensure that utilities improve communication with their customers and minimize the impacts of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), today issued for public comment a series of proposed additional guidelines that utilities would be required to follow in 2021 and beyond.
The Staff Proposal proposes additional rules utilities would have to follow to better address issues that arose during the utilities’ execution of their 2020 PSPS events, including addressing operational gaps experienced by Southern California Edison, which was the subject of a January CPUC public meeting. The additional guidelines are drafted to ensure that utilities are learning from their PSPS events, and are taking every step possible to consider, reach, and protect their consumers. The proposed guidelines for stakeholders to comment on include:
Ensuring Utilities Are Providing Precise Accurate Information to Customers
- Each utility must ensure that the public is able to access precise location information of potential and active PSPS areas. Each utility must make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information they are conveying is accurate.
Ensuring Utilities Are Reaching Non-English Speaking Customers
- Each utility must conduct public outreach in all languages prevalent in their service regions, in collaboration with community based organizations (CBOs) and with public safety partners. Outreach must include post-PSPS event surveys and metrics to evaluate whether the awareness and outreach is helping customers before, during, and after a PSPS event.
Ensuring Utilities Are Reaching Those Most Vulnerable
- Customers who are reliant on electricity dependent life-sustaining equipment must be included in each utility’s identification efforts, in addition to the existing requirement for each utility to identify, above and beyond those in the medical baseline population.
Ensuring Utilities Are Utilizing the Expertise of Community Partners
- Each utility must build partnerships with CBOs and healthcare providers, public health departments, healthcare facilities, and clinics, to lessen the impact of de-energization events, and to improve outreach and assistance for access and functional needs communities, and medical baseline eligible customers.
- Each utility must work with CBOs that conduct outreach in access and functional needs communities to identify customers who reside in multi-family buildings and rely on elevators to access or leave their residence to ensure the facility has safe entry and exit plans.
Ensuring Utility Employees Are Properly Trained in Emergency Management
- All utility Emergency Operations Centers staff must have emergency management experience or receive emergency management training.
Ensuring Utilities Learn From and Report on Each PSPS Event
- In post-PSPS event reports, each utility must provide circuit-by-circuit analysis of mitigation provided from backup power, including history of PSPS events for each circuit for the prior two years. Also, the utilities must report the number of customers notified in comparison to the number of customers actually de-energized.
The proposed guidelines are available in the Scoping Ruling at https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M366/K566/366566637.PDF.
Members of the public can comment on the proposed guidelines on the “Public Comments” tab on the proceeding’s Docket Card at https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:56:0::NO:RP,57,RIR:P5_PROCEEDING_SELECT:R1812005, where proceeding documents are also available.
Today’s proposal follows a May 2019 CPUC Decision that adopted PSPS communication and notification guidelines, and a May 2020 Decision that adopted additional public safety measures to enhance utility communication and collaboration with communities at risk of being impacted by a PSPS event.
For more information, visit www.cpuc.ca.gov/psps.
The CPUC regulates services and utilities, safeguards the environment, and assures Californians’ access to safe and reliable utility infrastructure and services. For more information on the CPUC, please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov.
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