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New microgrid proposals by Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric aim to get a variety of short- and long-term projects online within the next few months to keep power flowing during utility shutoffs when wildfire threats escalate.

If approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, hundreds of millions of dollars of new costs will be incurred by ratepayers.

Who bears the benefits and costs of these microgrids is an issue the agency will scrutinize, CPUC President Maybel Batjer told the Assembly Utilities & Energy Commission last week.

Pacific Gas & Electric ’s microgrid projects would be mostly front-of-the-meter. The main proposal is for third-party microgrids sized between 4 MW and 69.7 MW at 20 of its substations in areas that had their power cutoff last fire season.

The designated sites include substations in several cities in Marin County as well as Cloverdale—the site of the Kincaid Fire, Grass Valley, Ukiah, Red Bluff and Mendocino.

PG&E seeks an initial $136 million for these permanent microgrid systems. It plans to use some of the money to upgrade its substations to accommodate them. The systems are to run at least two full days and up to four days. Thus, the majority of the winning bids would likely be for natural gas fired systems. Biomass or loads of batteries could potentially qualify.

The utility says that if these microgrids had been in place in late October of last year, it would have kept electricity flowing to about 138,000 customer meters.

PG&E has been severely chastised for the extent and duration of its two outages last fall. The shutoffs affected public safety, led to water contamination, interrupted sewage treatment and jeopardized the health of people who rely on electric-powered devices.

The utility also proposes lining up about 40 temporary diesel-fired back up generators. They are to be 4 MW and able to keep power flowing to commercial corridors and critical facilities for four days. Energy storage systems are not eligible.

Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) was among those who criticized the utility for firing up dirty diesel generation last fall, and harming people with respiratory issues. PG&E said it will consider cleaner alternatives.

PG&E seeks initial cost recovery of $173.3 million for these diesel backup systems.The company also proposes offering communities financial and technical support for building community microgrids. The company also is seeking $69.7 million in return for technical support for communities and greater transparency with respect to its financial data.

Southern California Edison said in its filing that the first of its microgrids will be run on fossil fuels. It plans eventually to replace these with clean generation technologies, “when cost effective.”

Edison is choosing six communities for microgrid pilots. They are in Sylmar and Chatsworth, in unincorporated Los Angeles County; Fillmore in Ventura County; unincorporated San Bernardino County near Rialto and Fontana, and unincorporated San Bernardino County near Cabazon. The microgrid projects will serve between 15 and 2,332 users.

In 2018 and 2019, communities served by 150 SCE distribution circuits were shut down to prevent lines from igniting fires. Sixty-two of those circuits were shut down twice. The six communities chosen are among those who went through that experience and are either in high fire danger areas, or are served by a single line that passes through such an area.

In a different innovation intended to address people’s desperation during outages, Edison has experimented with giving financial incentives to schools, local governments and large businesses who already have solar and storage, if they will direct their power during an outage to a building that is open to the community. The utility said interest has been weak.

SCE is also offering special vehicles equipped to provide power for people to charge their cellphones. The vehicles are kept at various County Offices of Emergency Services

in anticipation of fire or outages. The utility also has opened 13 more permanent stations, most of them at Sears and Kmarts.

San Diego Gas & Electric did not identify new microgrid projects but pointed to the one it has operated in Borrego Springs since 2010. That community is served by a single source that previously left it vulnerable to power outages.

SDG&E said in its document that it already has a small pipeline of microgrids, spurred by the unforgettable fires in San Diego in 2007. Those burned through 13 percent of that large county’s land area, killing 23, destroying 1,600 homes and injuring dozens of firefighters. None of the three projects SDG&E mentioned will be ready by this summer.

They are Cameron Corners, a 725 kW AC solar array with 2,000 kWh of storage in a high fire district in eastern San Diego County. That independent grid will provide a fire station, a medical facility, food service businesses and gas stations power during an outage.

SDG&E also pointed to its project to provide power for CALFIRE Air Support, United States Forest Service Air Support, and a fire-retardant mixing station at Ramona Air Attack Base in northeastern San Diego County. The power supply is to last for one and a half days. SDG&E is currently contracting for engineering and construction.

The third project is in a San Diego County desert community that, like Borrego Springs, may have little burnable vegetation, but whose 230 customers are served by a vulnerable line. SDG&E plans to sign contracts for that work in late spring.

All three microgrids will be SDG&E owned and operated.

The utility also asked for expedited permission to buy a piece of equipment – a field level microgrid controller – from a sister company under its parent, Sempra Energy. This is an affiliate transaction that usually requires longer review.