Safety Or CYA? SCE Sheds No New Light On Its Mysterious Triggers For Protective Power Cuts
Written by 991KBU on September 29, 2020
If you were seeking any new information about planned power outages from Southern California Edison last night … you would be disappointed.
The electric company is required by state rules to hold outreach meetings … to explain to the public their policies on when they will turn off the power on purpose.
Under a law change two years ago … power companies are allowed to exempt themselves from a former state requirement .. that they always provide safe and reliable power.
The California Public Utilities Commission is faced with global climate change … increased fire danger and the basic fact that the overhead power poles are inherently not safe in high fire risk areas.
SCE is now allowed to turn off the lights when they fear strong winds could blow down or short out power lines.
How strong do the winds have to be???
The company’s local representative … Rudy Gonzales.
NEWSCART 73017 GONZALES WINDS
“We don’t have any hard set criteria in regards to Wind speed factors.
“Again it’s the conditions on the ground it’s the the brush … the debris as it flies through the air so there isn’t a hard set threshold for windspeed conditions.”
That’s the company line … SCE will never reveal what the wind speed prediction is for a particular power circuit to be blacked out.
The company does predict wind speeds … Edison has its own weather forecasts … and when those numbers hit a certain level … Edison starts issuing blackout warnings.
But the company’s lack of transparency prohibits the public for knowing if a real danger exists …. or if the company is just playing it very safe when it warns that it will shut off the power.
Much less . when the lines are de energized.
Again … the power company’s Rudy Gonzales.
NEWSCART 73018 GONZALES ALARMS
“If and when I believe that is the case they’ll send out warnings and those warnings include not only the circuits that were believe could be impacted but also periods of concern with very specific time frames that we believe potential for Public Safety power shut off implementation could occur.
“We do our very best but sometimes we issue warnings when no power shut offs are necessary.”
This leads to what fairly can be described as a power system that gets turned off at very low wind speeds … far far below the old 92 mile per hour safety rule.
And there is little to no accountability on the other side… after a PSPS … .
Or … if it was being over active and overprotective to protect its bottom line.
Other news from last night’s meeting.
SCE has not yet built a new power line that they had hoped to build … to connect the western end of Malibu with circuits near Thousand Oaks.
The company had said it planned to connect the circuits to give a second path of power into the western part of the city.
Right now … areas from Point Dume west are fed by only one line … and if it has a problem … several thousand homes are blacked out.
The other line would be a backdoor … of sorts.
It is not yet under construction.
Malibu has a power outage rate that is two and a half times times greater than the average for the SCE customer average.
And power outages in Malibu last four times longer than the average SCE blackout.
Those figures do not factor in the Woolsey Fire disaster … which left thousands of homes without power for more than two weeks.
