Southern California Edison launches plan to reduce wildfire threats

Southern California Edison (SCE) filed a multi-year plan with the California Public Utilities Commission to reduce the risk of fire ignitions caused by utility infrastructure.

SCEʻs 2020-22 Wildfire Mitigation Plan will advance its wildfire mitigation capabilities in a number of ways. Specifically, the company plans to install at least 700 circuit miles of covered conductor, install fast-acting fuses at more than 3,000 locations, conduct enhanced inspections, deploy at least 375 weather stations, trim or remove trees that may pose a risk of falling into power lines, leverage machine learning and analytics to improve inspections and automated sensing of electric system and equipment conditions, and partner with community-based organizations and community stakeholders to support their resiliency.

SCE plans to invest about $3.8 billion to implement the 2020-22 Wildfire Mitigation Plan.

“Our wildfire mitigation plan is a comprehensive effort to address the wildfire challenges in high fire risk areas which represent about 27 percent of the area we serve,” Phil Herrington, SCE’s senior vice president of Transmission & Distribution, said. “The women and men of Southern California Edison remain dedicated to keeping our communities safe and making our system stronger against the increasing threat of extreme conditions driven by climate change, which also supports the state’s broader electrification efforts.”

The company also plans to reduce the number and length of public safety power shutoffs (PSPS). The company plans to reduce PSPSʻs by targeting grid hardening and remediation measures and pursuing microgrid opportunities where they are feasible, among other solutions.

The company met or exceeded nearly all the goals in its 2019 Wildfire Mitigation Plan. Since 2018, SCE has installed more than 500 miles of power lines with covered conductor; installed fast-acting, current-limiting fuses at more than 10,000 locations; added more than 50 remote-controlled sectionalizing devices to isolate portions of circuits during potential fire ignitions; conducted enhanced inspections of overhead equipment in high fire risk areas; removed thousands of hazard trees that could fall into power lines and lead to a fire ignition; deployed 482 micro weather stations; and installed 161 high-definition cameras that visually cover nearly all of SCE’s high fire risk areas.