Bill Text: CA SB1003 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
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
possible. possible and the amount of risk addressed for the cost of the proposed mitigation.
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
|
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 Sections Section 8386 of the Public Utilities Code, relating to public utilities. 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. Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the Public Utilities Commission is a crime.
This bill would require those operations to take into account the need to minimize those risks as soon as possible. To the extent that the commission issues an order, decision, rule,
direction, demand, or requirements to implement this requirement, a violation of which is a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. possible and the amount of risk addressed for the cost of the proposed mitigation.
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 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
description of the metrics used to evaluate the plan’s performance and underlying assumptions for the use of those metrics, and a list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation’s service territory. 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 the requirements of the
those wildfire mitigation plan to requirements to, among other things, require the preventive strategies and programs to also include consideration of the cost effectiveness calculated consistent with the commission’s requirements and the relative reduction of exposure to wildfire risk caused by variations in implementation timelines for the preventive strategies and programs, require the description of the performance metrics to include a description of how
cost effectiveness and
variations in implementation timelines for different elements of the plan are incorporated, and 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. corporation, require the presentation of certain cost-effectiveness measures adopted by the commission, and, for each undergrounding location, require the electrical corporation to demonstrate that undergrounding is the most appropriate mitigation measure,
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 major cause of 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 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 face ongoing exposure to risks from wildfire.
(f) These strategies vary widely in cost to implement.
(f)
(g) The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety and the Public Utilities Commission do not currently incorporate the greater value of mitigations that can be implemented sooner and so reduce exposure to wildfire seasons sooner for California residents.
(g)
(h) Many of the wildfire mitigation measures to reduce utility ignition risk that take the longest to implement are also the most expensive to implement for current ratepayers.
(h)
(i) Incorporating the time value of reduced exposure to wildfire risk into wildfire safety planning and the cost-approval processes for electrical corporations will 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 the need to minimize these risks as quickly as(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 commission’s requirements, the relative reduction of exposure to wildfire risk caused by variations in implementation timelines for preventative strategies and programs 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, including a description of how cost effectiveness and the variation in implementation timelines for different elements of the plan are incorporated into these 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) shall not be construed as preventing 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 (A.15-05-002, et al.)
al., R.20-07-013, or subsequent proceedings) 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 all 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. For each location, the electrical corporation shall demonstrate that undergrounding is the most appropriate mitigation taking into account the cost effectiveness and time required for installation compared to other hardening 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 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.
