Today, Southern California Edison (SCE) filed an annual update to its 2020-22 Wildfire Mitigation Plan with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Given last year’s devastating wildfires across California and increasing extreme weather conditions, this year’s filing continues to demonstrate SCE’s commitment and urgency in reducing wildfire risk and protecting the safety of our customers and the communities we serve. Our upgrades will also lead to the reduction and frequency of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), which we are intensely aware have caused hardship to many of SCE’s customers and communities, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
We also take seriously the CPUC’s recent recommendations as well as government, public safety partner, customer, and other stakeholder comments in response to our execution of recent PSPS events. To respond to the concerns raised, SCE will be filing an action plan on Feb. 12. We are continuing to look for opportunities to improve, including accelerating mitigations for circuits that are frequently subject to PSPS, enhancing our partnerships and coordination with communities and public safety partners, and improving our PSPS processes and customer programs.
We will continue to be aggressive in 2021 with our plan to prevent wildfires and protect public safety. Below are 2020 results and 2021 targets for some of the plan’s key activities:
- Replaced more than 960 miles of power lines with insulated ones, known as covered conductor, bringing the total to more than 1,480 miles since 2018. SCE plans to install between 1,000 and 1,400 miles this year.
- Upgraded more than 6,090 poles to fire-resistant versions, bringing the total to more than 7,510 poles since 2018. This effort increases the resilience of SCE’s infrastructure to help minimize service disruptions during fires regardless of ignition source.
- Deployed more than 590 weather stations, which provide high-resolution and near-real-time information on circuits in high fire risk areas last year, bringing the total to more than 1,050 weather stations. SCE plans to install 375 weather stations this year.
- Inspected more than 199,000 distribution assets and 35,500 transmission assets in high fire risk areas last year.
- Removed more than 12,200 hazard trees (double the number from 2019) that could fall into power lines and lead to a fire ignition.
SCE last year estimated it would invest about $3.8 billion to implement the 2020-22 Wildfire Mitigation Plan. The company devoted $1.3 billion last year and is on track to spend an additional $3.5 billion in 2021-2022.
We remain committed to effectively engaging the public about how to prepare for, prevent and mitigate wildfires, including our planned work and PSPS. We will continue to implement a robust community outreach effort, which includes educating our communities through various means, collaborating with community-based organizations to help reach vulnerable populations, and increasing outreach to encourage more eligible customers to enroll in the Medical Baseline program and expanding eligibility for the Critical Care Backup Battery Back-up program to include all Medical Baseline customers.
To learn more about our plan, view our press release and fact sheet. For more information about our wildfire efforts, PSPS, and customer resources, visit www.sce.com/wildfire.
I will be following up with you in the upcoming weeks to share and discuss more about our plan, how we will continue to work with you and our public safety partners to collaborate and prepare for wildfire mitigation activities, and our efforts to keep you and your residents informed.
Thank you for your continued partnership. We remain dedicated to keeping our communities safe, making our infrastructure more resilient against the increasing threat of extreme conditions driven by climate change, and reducing the impact of PSPS to customers.
Regards,
Dani Anderson
SCE Government Relations Manager
(805) 705-1296
dani.anderson@sce.com