Southern California Edison explains public safety power shutoffs, says improvements underway

Southern California Edison (SCE) told the Fillmore City Council on Jan. 28 that public safety power shutoffs, or PSPS events, remain a necessary but imperfect tool to reduce wildfire risk and said it is expanding grid-hardening and customer resources.

SCE’s local government relations manager, Natalie Lones, presented an overview of the utility’s wildfire mitigation plan, saying SCE has installed covered conductor, deployed weather stations and high-definition wildfire cameras, and stood up community resource centers including one in Fillmore.

Lones said SCE has completed ‘‘over 6,000 miles of covered conductor’’ and deployed more than ‘‘14,000 critical care backup batteries to our medical baseline customers.’’ She described covered conductor as ‘‘a coated or insulated wire’’ and said studies estimate it ‘‘is about 70% more effective in reducing the chance of a significant wildfire’’ compared with bare wire. She emphasized that covered conductor is faster and less costly to install than undergrounding: SCE’s materials compared covered conductor at roughly a circuit-mile cost in the low hundreds of thousands versus undergrounding that can reach into the millions per circuit mile.

Why it mattered: residents and council members in Fillmore have experienced multiple multi‑day outages in recent wind events. The utility’s presentation addressed both technical fixes and community supports — backup batteries, community resource centers and notification tools — while acknowledging recent failures in timeliness and clarity of customer notices.

The presentation laid out how SCE decides on shutoffs. Lones said an incident management team monitors weather and field inspections, runs models twice daily and analyzes incoming data on 10‑minute cycles; if a circuit reaches a de‑energization threshold the incident commander may order a PSPS. Lones cautioned that covered conductor ‘‘does not eliminate public safety power shutoffs. It just increases the threshold of the wind speeds to deenergize those circuits.’’

Council members pressed SCE on practical questions about the Buckhorn circuit, a long circuit that serves parts of Fillmore, Piru and Los Angeles County and has contributed to wide-area outages. ‘‘Is there a way ... to break the circuit up so that it’s more targeted as opposed to being this giant circuit?’’ asked Councilmember Rodriguez, who said parts of the circuit are de‑energized while other nearby sections remain powered. Lones said SCE uses sectionalizing devices where feasible and that sometimes the incident commander must de‑energize an entire circuit for safety; she said SCE is looking at adding more sectional devices and would follow up with Fillmore‑specific circuit and scope data.

Council members and residents urged improvements to customer notification and battery availability. Lones acknowledged that notifications were imperfect in recent events and that outage mapping was not updated fast enough during the largest recent windstorm; she described a temporary microsite SCE deployed and encouraged residents to use the SCE outage map and mobile app. She also confirmed that the critical‑care backup battery program is funded on cycles and depends on available funding; the program is not continuously open.

Council direction and follow-up: Councilmembers asked SCE to provide Fillmore‑specific lists of completed and planned covered‑conductor and undergrounding work and to re‑send access to the partner public‑safety portal that shows circuits and customers in scope during PSPS events. Lones said she would provide Fillmore‑specific data and the executive‑call FAQs, and she offered to help register city staff and fire personnel for the portal.

What remains uncertain: SCE reiterated cost and rate constraints limit rapid deployment of widespread undergrounding. The utility said undergrounding can take longer (roughly four years per circuit mile, by SCE’s estimate) and cost substantially more than covered conductor, a constraint staff cited repeatedly when explaining pace of work.

Council members asked SCE to continue providing updates and to coordinate with the city on community outreach and identification of residents with critical medical equipment.