Santa Clarita council sends letter to Southern California Edison after repeated PSPS outages; schedules CPUC meeting

The Santa Clarita City Council on Tuesday submitted a formal letter to Southern California Edison asking the utility to "accelerate grid hardening" for circuits serving the city after repeated public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events that council staff said affected "approximately 5,000 to 10,000 residents." Mayor Bill Miranda read the letter into the record and said the city will seek an immediate reply and meet with California Public Utilities Commission staff and SCE executives.

The letter, addressed to Stephen D. Powell, president and chief executive officer of Southern California Edison, said PSPS events have sometimes been implemented "with, at times, last minute notifications to rate payers and the city, or in other cases, without any prior notification," and asked SCE to accelerate hardening work on the Hillfield, Mamba and Python circuits. The council asked SCE to consider reimbursement for costs tied to outages, and said the city expects SCE to provide more accurate outage notifications and better customer-service access during PSPS events.

Why…