CPUC Cuts Edison A Break – Duty To Provide Emergency Power Quietly Deleted
Written by 991KBU on July 26, 2018
Information is coming in on the Southern California Edison plan to turn off electricity during heavy Santa Ana winds in fire danger areas.
Caltrans officials say they have not been consulted by the power company as of this week … on the plans by the power company to turn off electricity in Malibu and other fire danger cities.
A spokesman for the state agency says their electric engineers are unaware of the plan.
Traffic lights operated by Caltrans … including the 22 traffic signals in Malibu … have batteries in them for power failures.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the batteries will only last six hours when they’re brand-new … and as they get older … their runtime can diminish to one hour.
We’ve observed traffic signal batteries failing completely when the power goes out.
Edison company officials will appear before the Malibu public safety commission volunteers next Wednesday, August 1… to explain their blackout plans.
The electric company has gotten out of a requirement that it provide generators or batteries to critical public safety infrastructure.
The California Public Utilities Commission quietly removed a requirement that power be provided to critical installations.
At its meeting two weeks ago in San Francisco … the CPUC quietly adopted an amended resolution wITH several major changes.
These changes were not announced to the public.
The requirement to provide generators and/or batteries to critical facilities was removed … quietly … before th evote
The CPUC’s reasoning: most critical facilities are required to have their own back-up power resources.
This decision … the CPUC director reports … was reached after what they call consulting with the parties.
And who were those parties??
The electric companies.
