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State officials excoriated Southern California Edison Tuesday over its extensive power shutoffs last year, including over Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday, awarding it the Hall of Shame prize for 2020. It was previously reserved for Pacific Gas & Electric. PG&E was raked over the coals by regulators and politicians for the harm and disruption caused by its preventive outages, which were unprecedented in number and duration the previous two years.

California Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said Edison has sometimes began shutting down lines before notifying safety and emergency operations agencies.

“We would benefit from sitting down and talking through decision making,” Edison’s Phil Herrington responded during a Jan. 26 joint agency hearing.

Ghilarducci and other safety officials want to pull the curtain back on the utility’s rational for its shutoff decisions. They also called for far more detailed post shutoff event reports, including information on the numbers of customers affected and whether they have any special needs, such as those dependent on electric-powered medical equipment. Ghilarducci said the agencies often “have to pull out” the information from Edison.

SCE shut off power 16 times last year during threatening weather conditions. These took place during the pandemic, exacerbating the impacts of the power outages because so many people are working from home and kids are attending school remotely.

Power shutoffs, “must be a measure of a last resort,” Marybel Batjer, California Public Utilities Commission president, reiterated. “The stakes for the most vulnerable are very high.”

Cascading impacts

Turning off power causes “cascading impacts to communities at large” and should not be “just an action SCE takes to protect themselves,” OES Director Ghilarducci said. He noted the state spent $100 million responding to public safety shutoffs. He pointed out that safety and energy regulators have been discussing lessons learned about the impacts of shutoffs on customers with the utilities for a few years but sees little evidence of that at Edison.

Utility President Kevin Payne said he heard the criticisms, but until last week rainfall was below average, and 4 million acres of land in California burned last year. “I know people are angry and frustrated,” he said. “We have terribly difficult decisions to make.”

The utility botched communications with local first responders and other critical agencies, has not adequately protected vulnerable customers, and has provided confusing and inadequate notifications to customers, energy regulators and safety officials said during Tuesday’s afternoon hearing.

Edison officials acknowledged the company fell short, particularly in the area of protections for low-income customers who need medical devices, including enrollment in the medical baseline program.

“We are not yet reaching all 5,000 medically vulnerable customers in high fire threat areas,” Edison’s Jill Anderson admitted. She added that the utility was working on expanding installations of battery backups at high-risk, low-income residences. To date, it has installed or scheduled for installation 830 batteries and hopes to reach 3,000 of the 12,000 in need this year.

An angry Ghilarducci said outreach to all medically dependent and other vulnerable customers should have been in place two years ago. While not perfect, PG&E could provide some pointers in the area to SCE, he added.

Call for formal investigation

The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office urged the CPUC to open a formal investigation into the utility’s flawed notification process, including to first responders and critical care facilities, such as fire departments and hospitals. It also insisted utility regulators look into how it spent wildfire mitigation funds.

Batjer said some of the utility’s shutoffs “appeared tactless and deficient,” with its “notifications confusing and at times contradictory.” She and local politicians noted the critical impacts to those dependent on well water when pumps cease functioning. They also caused cell phone services and traffic lights to go down in a number of areas.

The company said it would redesign its notification process and coordinate with the CPUC to improve them.

CalFire Director Thom Porter called for more grid hardening, vegetation management and line sectionalization to reduce the extent of shutoffs. He said he looks “forward to improvements” and seeing how the utility meets the mitigation plan’s articulated targets.

Sen. Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles) raised many of the same concerns as the other officials. But he also called on the CPUC to keep close tabs on the $200 million in Self Generation Incentive Program funds used for microgrids and other systems to ensure they are strategically placed in communities that lose power.