Bill Text: CA SB1003 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Electrical corporations: wildfire mitigation plans.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Engrossed) 2024-07-02 - From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. with recommendation: To consent calendar. (Ayes 15. Noes 0.) (July 1). Re-referred to Com. on APPR. [SB1003 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SB1003-Amended.html
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Amended
IN
Assembly
June 20, 2024 |
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Amended
IN
Assembly
June 03, 2024 |
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Amended
IN
Senate
March 21, 2024 |
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Amended
IN
Senate
March 07, 2024 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 1003
| Introduced by Senator Dodd |
February 01, 2024 |
An act to amend Section 8386 of the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1003, as amended, Dodd.
Electrical corporations: wildfire mitigation plans.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires electrical corporations to construct, maintain, and operate their electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment.
This bill would require those actions to take into account both the need to minimize those risks as soon as possible time required to implement the proposed mitigations and the amount of risk addressed for the cost of the proposed mitigation.
reduced for the cost and risk remaining.
Existing law requires electrical corporations to annually prepare and submit their wildfire mitigation plan to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety for review and approval. Existing law requires the wildfire mitigation plans to include, among other things, a description of preventive strategies and programs to minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire, including consideration of dynamic climate change risk, a list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation’s service territory, and a description of where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines within those areas of its service territory with the highest wildfire risk, as specified.
This bill would revise those wildfire mitigation plan requirements to, among
other things, require the preventive strategies and programs to also include consideration of their cost effectiveness, as specified, and the relative reduction of exposure to wildfire risk caused by variations in implementation timelines for the preventive strategies and programs, require the list to also include particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed in which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by the electrical corporation, require the presentation of certain cost-effectiveness measures adopted by the commission, and require the electrical corporation to explain the reasonableness of the mitigation selected in the description of where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines, as specified.
Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
To the extent
that the commission would issue an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement to implement this bill, a violation of which would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YESBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) Electrical corporations’ infrastructure has, over the past 10 years, been the cause of the most destructive wildfires in California history.
(b) Electrical corporations are required to develop and submit wildfire mitigation plans each year for review and approval to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety.
(c) Wildfire mitigation plans and consequent investment have been a contributing factor to recent rate increases for California electricity consumers.
(d) Wildfire mitigation plans of electrical corporations propose a variety of strategies to reduce the chance of wildfire ignitions caused by equipment owned and operated by electrical corporations in California.
(e) These strategies vary widely in the amount of time they take to implement, from weeks to up to a decade, during which California residents may face ongoing exposure to risks from wildfire.
(f) These strategies vary widely in the cost to implement, the cost effectiveness of reducing wildfire ignition risk, and impacts to electricity service reliability.
(g) The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety and the Public Utilities Commission do not
currently balance the value of mitigations with the time necessary to implement mitigations.
(h) Balancing the time value of reduced exposure to wildfire risk and the cost effectiveness of mitigations into wildfire safety planning and the cost-approval processes for electrical corporations may both improve safety outcomes and reduce costs for California ratepayers.
SEC. 2.
Section 8386 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to read:8386.
(a) Each electrical corporation shall construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment, taking into account both the(b) Each electrical corporation shall annually prepare and submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the office for review and approval. In calendar year 2020, and thereafter, the plan shall cover at least a three-year period. The office shall establish a schedule for the submission of subsequent comprehensive wildfire mitigation plans, which may allow for the staggering of compliance periods for each electrical corporation. In its discretion, the office may allow the annual submissions to be updates to the last approved comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan; provided, that each electrical corporation shall submit a comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan at least once every three years.
(c) The wildfire mitigation plan shall include all
of the following:
(1) An accounting of the responsibilities of persons responsible for executing the plan.
(2) The objectives of the plan.
(3) A description of the preventive strategies and programs to be adopted by the electrical corporation to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, including consideration of their cost effectiveness, calculated consistent with the direction provided by the most recent Safety Model Assessment Proceeding (A.15-05-002, et al., R.20-07-013, or subsequent proceedings), the relative reduction of exposure to wildfire risk caused by variations in implementation timelines for preventative strategies and programs, and dynamic climate change risks.
(4) A description of the metrics the electrical corporation plans to use to evaluate the plan’s performance and the assumptions that underlie the use of those metrics.
(5) A discussion of how the application of previously identified metrics to previous plan performances has informed the plan.
(6) A description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety. As part of these protocols, each electrical corporation shall include protocols related to mitigating the public safety impacts of disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the
impacts on all of the following:
(A) Critical first responders.
(B) Health and communication infrastructure.
(C) Customers who receive medical baseline allowances pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 739. The electrical corporation may deploy backup electrical resources or provide financial assistance for backup electrical resources to a customer receiving a medical baseline allowance for a customer who meets all of the following requirements:
(i) The customer relies on life-support equipment that operates on electricity to sustain life.
(ii) The customer demonstrates financial need, including
through enrollment in the California Alternate Rates for Energy program continued pursuant to Section 739.1.
(iii) The customer is not eligible for backup electrical resources provided through medical services, medical insurance, or community resources.
(D) Subparagraph (C) does not prevent an electrical corporation from deploying backup electrical resources or providing financial assistance for backup electrical resources under any other authority.
(7) A description of the electrical corporation’s appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, including procedures for those customers receiving medical baseline allowances as described in
paragraph (6). The procedures shall direct notification to all public safety offices, critical first responders, health care facilities, and operators of telecommunications infrastructure with premises within the footprint of potential deenergization for a given event. The procedures shall comply with any orders of the commission regarding notifications of deenergization events.
(8) Identification of circuits that have frequently been deenergized pursuant to a deenergization event to mitigate the risk of wildfire and the measures taken, or planned to be taken, by the electrical corporation to reduce the need for, and impact of, future deenergization of those circuits, including, but not limited to, the estimated annual decline in circuit deenergization and deenergization impact on customers, and replacing, hardening, or undergrounding any
portion of the circuit or of upstream transmission or distribution lines.
(9) Plans for vegetation management.
(10) Plans for inspections of the electrical corporation’s electrical infrastructure.
(11) A description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for the deenergization of the electrical corporation’s transmission infrastructure, for instances when the deenergization may impact customers who, or entities that, are dependent upon the infrastructure. The protocols shall comply with any order of the commission regarding deenergization events.
(12) A list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks,
throughout the electrical corporation’s service territory, including all relevant wildfire risk and risk mitigation information that is part of the commission’s then applicable Safety Model Assessment Proceeding and the Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filings. The list shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
(A) Risks and risk drivers associated with design, construction, operations, and maintenance of the electrical corporation’s equipment and facilities.
(B) Particular risks and risk drivers associated with topographic and climatological risk factors throughout the different parts of the electrical corporation’s service territory.
(C) Particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed with
which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by an electrical corporation within its service territory.
(13) A description of how the plan accounts for the wildfire risk identified in the electrical corporation’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filing.
(14) A description of the actions the electrical corporation will take to ensure its system will achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency, taking into account the cost and time required to achieve those benefits, and to ensure that its system is prepared for a major event, including hardening and modernizing its infrastructure with improved engineering, system design, standards, equipment, and facilities, such as undergrounding, insulating of distribution wires, and replacing poles. The
electrical corporation shall present the cost-effectiveness measures adopted by the commission, calculated consistent with the direction provided by the most recent Safety Model Assessment Proceeding for at least two reasonable mitigation alternatives for a given identified wildfire risk.
(15) A description of where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines within those areas of its service territory identified to have the highest wildfire risk in a commission fire threat map. The electrical corporation shall explain the reasonableness of the mitigation selected, taking into account the cost effectiveness cost-effectiveness, reliability
impacts, and time required for installation compared to other alternatives.
(16) A showing that the electrical corporation has an adequately sized and trained workforce to promptly restore service after a major event, taking into account employees of other utilities pursuant to mutual aid agreements and employees of entities that have entered into contracts with the electrical corporation.
(17) Identification of any geographic area in the electrical corporation’s service territory that is a higher wildfire threat than is currently identified in a commission fire threat map, and where the commission should consider expanding the high fire threat district based on new information or changes in the environment.
(18) A methodology for identifying and presenting enterprisewide safety risk and wildfire-related risk that is consistent with the methodology used by other electrical corporations unless the commission determines otherwise.
(19) A description of how the plan is consistent with the electrical corporation’s disaster and emergency preparedness plan prepared pursuant to Section 768.6, including both of the following:
(A) Plans to prepare for, and to restore service after, a wildfire, including workforce mobilization and prepositioning equipment and employees.
(B) Plans for community outreach and public awareness before, during, and after a wildfire, including language notification in English, Spanish, and
the top three primary languages used in the state other than English or Spanish, as determined by the commission based on the United States Census data.
(20) A statement of how the electrical corporation will restore service after a wildfire.
(21) Protocols for compliance with requirements adopted by the commission regarding activities to support customers during and after a wildfire, outage reporting, support for low-income customers, billing adjustments, deposit waivers, extended payment plans, suspension of disconnection and nonpayment fees, repair processing and timing, access to electrical corporation representatives, and emergency communications.
(22) A description of the processes and procedures the electrical corporation
will use to do all of the following:
(A) Monitor and audit the implementation of the plan.
(B) Identify any deficiencies in the plan or the plan’s implementation and correct those deficiencies.
(C) Monitor and audit the effectiveness of electrical line and equipment inspections, including inspections performed by contractors, carried out under the plan and other applicable statutes and commission rules.
(23) Any other information that the office may require.
(d) The Wildfire Safety Division
office shall post all wildfire mitigation plans and annual updates on the commission’s internet website before July 1, 2021, and on the office’s internet website beginning July 1, 2021, for no less than two months before the division’s or office’s decision regarding approval of the plan. The division or office shall accept comments on each plan from the public, other local and state agencies, and interested parties, and verify that the plan complies with all applicable rules, regulations, and standards, as appropriate.
