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SCE expands consequence modeling, adopts zonal fire‑climate approach and ties inspections to mitigation selection
Summary
Southern California Edison said it expanded consequence simulations to its full service territory, adopted zonal fire‑climate selection for worst days and tightened a feedback loop from inspection findings to mitigation selection through a Fire‑Incident Preliminary Analysis process.
Southern California Edison told the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety that it has retooled consequence modeling and inspection practices to improve localized assessments and to more tightly connect findings to mitigation priorities.
“We expanded our wildfire simulations to cover our complete service territory. Originally, we were just doing the HFRA plus a buffer. Now we've expanded it to our complete service territory,” SCE presenter Ray said. He described three principal changes: covering the full territory in consequence modeling (not only HFRA), using regional fire‑climate zones to select representative worst fire days for each zone, and incorporating building‑loss factors and other condition‑specific refinements.
SCE’s key changes and practices: - Expanded consequence modeling: SCE said it moved from modeling only HFRA plus a buffer to simulating ignitions across its complete service territory (including lines into neighboring states where relevant) to capture non‑HFRA risks as well. - Fire‑climate zones: The company now subdivides its territory into zones so that each zone’s worst fire days are used for probabilistic consequence modeling, rather than using the single set of worst days for the entire territory. - Inspection program and intervals: SCE explained it combines ground and aerial (drone) inspections to achieve a 360‑degree view and that inspection intervals are risk‑prioritized: yearly inspections for the severest areas, asset‑specific cycles for high‑consequence areas and at least once every three years in other HFRA areas. Ray said SCE inspects roughly 200,000 of about 285,000 distribution assets in its HFRA annually. - Fire‑incident preliminary analysis (FIPA): SCE described a process that reviews every repair order and ignition, categorizes probable drivers, and then adjusts inspection forms, prioritization and mitigation choices. Ray gave examples where investigations changed inspection questionnaires and led to focused pilots on secondary conductors and upgraded transmission structure standards.
How mitigations are evaluated: SCE said it uses a multi‑attribute risk score (MARS) and an IWMS segmentation process to prioritize mitigations by consequence, then layers probability and cost‑effectiveness analysis when selecting mitigations. SCE stressed a human review remains part of selection to account for feasibility and field conditions.
What SCE did not claim: The presentation described internal modeling improvements, inspection practices and how investigation findings alter practice. It did not announce a regulatory filing or a final, prescriptive mitigation list at the meeting.
Implication: SCE’s zonal, full‑territory consequence approach and the FIPA feedback loop aim to make mitigation choices more local and evidence‑driven and to refine inspection practices that feed operational decisions such as PSPS thresholds.
