On August 13, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted a Decision establishing a standardized customer reliability reporting framework for the state’s three large investor-owned utilities (IOUs): PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric. The Decision modernizes some of the Commission’s reporting practices and creates a unified reporting structure designed to improve transparency around power outages, utility reliability, and the impacts of wildfire mitigation activities, sunsetting in 2036.
For several years, RCRC has advocated for greater visibility into outage trends in rural and fire-prone communities, particularly outages associated with utility fast-trip programs. The Decision adopted by the CPUC incorporates several stakeholder recommendations that improve the usefulness of utility reliability reporting. Among these changes, the large IOUs will now be required to separately identify and report fast-trip and Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) outages; explain how changes to fast-trip settings may have influenced outage trends; report whether outages occur on overhead or underground facilities; and provide more detailed information regarding customer notifications and outage impacts on vulnerable populations. The Decision also expands the reliability metrics utilities must report, and improves visibility into the relationship between wildfire mitigation activities, utility operations, and customer reliability.
While the Commission declined to require utilities to identify corrective actions for circuits experiencing chronic outages, the final framework represents a significant step toward greater transparency and accountability. The new reports should provide decision-makers with more meaningful information to evaluate reliability trends and the effectiveness of significant, ongoing ratepayer investments into safety upgrades and system hardening.
RCRC’s comments on the Proposed Decision can be found here. For more information, contact RCRC Senior Policy Advocate Leigh Kammerich.