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Energy Safety adopts wildfire mitigation plan guidelines
Summary
The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety adopted a single, evergreen Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP) guidelines document that consolidates prior guidance, adds chapter 5 for independent transmission owner requirements, and includes technical and process clarifications requested in stakeholder comments.
The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety adopted final wildfire mitigation plan (WMP) guidelines during a public meeting, Deputy Director Tony Marino said, exercising authority delegated by Energy Safety’s director.
The guidelines set requirements, format, timing and other matters for electrical corporations’ WMP submissions to Energy Safety, which are required under the California Public Utilities Code. "An approved WMP does not relieve an electrical corporation from complying with applicable local, state or federal environmental requirements," Senior Public Utilities Regulatory Analyst Nathan said during the meeting.
Energy Safety staff said the new guidelines replace the prior multi-document approach with a single WMP guidelines document and a separate maturity model and survey. Nathan described the restructured format as intended to “evergreen” the guidance so it does not require annual updates unless necessary. Zhen Yang Xiao, also a senior public utilities regulatory analyst, summarized substantive revisions made between the draft and the revised draft, saying staff clarified terminology, corrected formatting and added or modified requirements across multiple chapters.
Key elements of the adopted guidelines include five chapters (introduction; process and evaluation; base WMP technical requirements; petition to amend; and independent transmission owner modified requirements) and five appendices covering definitions, risk-modeling support, maps, areas for continued improvement, and reference regulations, codes and standards. Chapter 5 adds modified reporting requirements specific to independent transmission owners (ITOs).
Zhen Yang Xiao outlined several specific changes that appear in the adopted draft: clarifications to WMP terminology; making the pre-submission checklist optional; added requirements for both HFRA and HFTD in relevant tables and sections; replacement of references to the Safety Model and Assessment (SMAP) with a "risk-based decision making framework"; added prioritization requirements and time-frame descriptions for risk evaluation; standardized language on frequently de-energized circuits; adjusted scenario-use language for risk modeling; added a partnership section in vegetation management; required qualitative targets for enterprise systems; and added PSPS (public safety power shutoff) after-action lessons learned as a lesson source.
The meeting record shows written comments were received on the drafts from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the California Department of the Attorney General’s Office (Cal Advocates), San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and Grid Policy, Inc. (GPI); Energy Safety staff said those comments informed many of the revisions.
Staff said a clean version of the adopted guidelines will be published on Energy Safety’s website and added to the WMP guidelines docket with service to the associated service list before the close of business Monday, Feb. 24. "I would like to also remind everybody to subscribe to the various ESPD guidelines and evaluation dockets to stay current on ESPD work streams and the products," Zhen Yang Xiao said.
The meeting opened a public-comment period but the transcript does not record any public comments being made. The transcript shows the formal adoption statement and staff directions to publish the final documents; the record does not include a roll-call vote or a named mover/second.
