‘Obvious flaws.’ California regulator hits PG&E over new rash of wildfire safety blackouts

California’s top utilities regulator has blasted PG&E Corp. over a recent rash of blackouts designed to avert wildfires, citing “the obvious flaws in PG&E’s approach.”

Marybel Batjer, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, last week scolded Patti Poppe, the chief executive of PG&E, over a new safety initiative called “Fast Trip” or “Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings.” The program calls for PG&E to ramp up the sensitivity of the circuit breakers on major stretches of the utility’s grid, triggering automatic blackouts when power equipment comes into contact with an animal, a tree or something else that could lead to a fire.

In her letter, Batjer said more than 500 blackouts have occurred since the program started in late July, affecting more than 560,000 homes and businesses. Some customers have been hit more than once.

“While I acknowledge how critical it is to public safety to reduce the risk of utility-ignited wildfires, it appears that PG&E decided to implement Fast Trip settings this summer with little forethought,” she wrote.

These blackouts are different than PG&E’s “Public Safety Power Shutoffs,” or PSPS, which are prompted by forecasts of dry, hot winds. The PSPS program tends to take in wider areas of PG&E’s territory but customers are generally warned two days in advance. Instead, the “Fast Trip” blackouts occur without any heads-up.

The “Fast Trip” blackouts represent PG&E’s latest attempt to end the series of mega-fires that have killed dozens, caused billions in property damage and forced the utility into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019.

The new safety plan was launched two weeks after the start of the Dixie Fire — at 963,309 acres, the second largest in California history — which state investigators believe was caused when a tree brushed against PG&E power equipment.

‘Can only charitably be characterized as shortsighted’

PG&E has told a federal judge that it believes the Dixie Fire could have been averted if the “Fast Trip” blackout initiative had been in effect. It also has said the initiative has succeeded in preventing additional fires.

Batjer acknowledged that PG&E has recently dialed back the sensitivity of the circuit breakers somewhat to reduce the size and duration of the blackouts. But she said the “Fast Trip” system has unmistakable parallels with the company’s earlier attempts at running the pre-planned public safety shutoffs — which drew outrage and condemnation from Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders when hundreds of thousands of Northern California customers were blacked out during a series of wind storms in October 2019.

“I am worried that there are striking similarities in the obvious flaws in PG&E’s approach to its initial execution and customer communications on both programs,” Batjer wrote. “An approach that can only charitably be characterized as shortsighted. In both instances, care and understanding for how the loss of power may affect customers has been overwhelmingly absent.”

She added that the blackouts “are more than a matter of inconvenience — they are disruptive, and for customers who rely on electricity to maintain necessary life functions, they can be life-threatening.”

The blackouts have been spread throughout the company’s service territory, and have hit especially hard in El Dorado, the North Coast and Santa Cruz counties. Santa Cruz’s Board of Supervisors called on the state to investigate, while a slew of customers complained to members of the Public Utilities Commission about the program at a recent hearing.

In a statement released Monday in response to Batjer’s criticisms, PG&E said it already restored settings on many of the circuits just before the rainstorm eight days ago and is continuing to monitor weather conditions “to determine the proper settings.” The program is seasonal and PG&E has said it will go back to the usual settings on all circuits once the fire season is considered over.

While the company said the heightened settings “have proven effective at preventing wildfires,” PG&E agreed that it had done a poor job of implementing the initiative.

“Our initial customer communications fell short, and reliability on some circuits has been unacceptably poor,” the company said. “We have committed to improving on both.”

In response to customer complaints, the company posted an information page on its website about resources available during blackouts.

This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 10:07 AM with the headline "‘Obvious flaws.’ California regulator hits PG&E over new rash of wildfire safety blackouts."