Editorial: PG&E’s shutoffs worked, but flaws were exposed

19 October 2019

Published by https://www.marinij.com


USA – In the wake of last week’s power blackouts, PG&E is getting slammed by regulators, politicians and customers.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s fire-prevention strategy was right, shutting off the power to areas where conditions were ripe for a destructive wildland blaze, but the giant utility was ham-handed in the way it followed through with those plans.

While the possibility of outages was expected and PG&E had done a good job of warning its customers of its plans, its follow through displayed flaws in its equipment, decision making and necessary oversight by public safety departments.

Some areas of Marin had their power turned off for long periods when there was hardly a breath of wind that could possibly down power lines and spark a fire.

PG&E should stand ready to reimburse residents and businesses for losses suffered as a result of unnecessarily prolonged outages.

After the 2017 North Bay fires, which claimed lives and destroyed thousands of homes, state lawmakers criticized PG&E for its failure to turn off power when it knew that conditions were primed for the threat of wildfires.

PG&E deployed that measure last week, but there was seemingly little rhyme or reason to some of the areas chosen to be blacked out, here and in other parts of the state.

Obviously, change is needed, and it should come with greater decision-making involvement with state regulators and local fire and police departments.

The state Public Utilities Commission’s history of slipshod oversight of PG&E has been evident, both in the deadly and destructive wildland fires of 2017 and 2018, and in looking out for the public.

It its wake, PUC President Marybel Batjer said PG&E’s execution of its power shut-off “created an unacceptable situation that should never be repeated.” She’s right.

For example, what was PG&E’s plans for people whose lives depend on an electric-powered medical devices? As one of the state’s public utilities, even though run as a private business, PG&E has to step up to it responsibilities.

The crashing of its website and its failure to reasonably field customers’ phone calls were examples of the power giant’s lack of pre-planning. It is time that PG&E “harden” its power system to make it a lot less vulnerable to system breakdowns that could spark fires. The PUC needs to diligently monitor PG&E’s progress and inspection records. Local fire officials also need to be involved in checking and re-checking the safety of equipment in their areas.

In addition, PG&E needs to re-design its system to give it greater pinpoint control over where fire-safety outages should take place. The large swaths of blackouts — turning off power for more than 700,000 customers and an estimated 2 million California residents — reflected a lot of room for improvement.

Even PG&E CEO Bill Johnson admitted: “We were not adequately prepared.”

That may be an understatement, but one that demands action by both the PUC and local emergency officials to go to work now to be better prepared next time.

There will be a next time.

There’s also valuable time to make sure it is neither a repeat of Northern California’s fires, nor a repeat of the all-too-real problems in PG&E’s planning, strategy and flawed follow-through.

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