KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Local representatives from Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger to State Senator Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park, released statements this week asking for better access to microgrids for vulnerable communities in the wake of large-scale power shutoffs implemented by Southern California Edison (SCE).
Ed. Note: This story was written by Tim Smith.
Extreme winds experienced on Tuesday, Jan. 19 resulted in several large Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) across southern California, heavily impacting areas of Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus, and Castaic.
These mass shutdowns triggered a response from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which referred to the actions of SCE as both “tactless” and “deficient in meeting the standard its customers deserve.”
Stern, who serves as the chair of the State Senate Natural Resources & Water and Joint Legislative Emergency Management Committees, then released a statement aimed at the CPUC and SCE, asking for better access to microgrids for vulnerable communities.
“The CPUC and Edison have both dragged their heels when it comes to removing roadblocks to linking more distributed generation assets and building microgrids for these vulnerable communities,” Stern said in a statement Tuesday. “SB 1339 became law 2+ years ago, but Edison has yet to jump to embrace this new reality and the CPUC’s recent proposed rulemaking on microgrids have not pushed the utility.”
See Related: Power Shut Off In Some Areas Of Santa Clarita Due To High Winds
Stern, whose nearby district experienced most of the SCE’s power shutdowns in 2020, went on to state that while his district and those affected by the shutdowns had been patient with SCE during previous power shut offs, it was now the time to enact changes to protect those who might suffer needlessly from the shutdowns.
The state senator reminded the CPUC that the Access and Functional Needs community, as well as countless families coping with COVID-19 requirements such as tele-learning and tele-commuting, are being impacted heavily by these actions without much warning.
Stern also emphasized to the CPUC that he would “like to see both of them be much more proactive when it comes to letting medically vulnerable Californians know about the medical baseline programs that give them access to early notification of PSPS events and rolling blackout events now under [his] SB 596 from last year.”
Supervisor Barger echoed Stern’s concerns, noting that PSPS can impact nearly 50,000 households in the San Gabriel, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys. With the various health officer orders that have closed schools and forced more individuals to work from home, the devastating impacts of power loss are significant to these community members, officials said.
“This hearing is an important first step to hold Edison accountable to its customers and communities and to fix what is clearly a broken system tied to Public Safety Power Shutoffs,” said Barger. “Although we understand that Southern California Edison must balance very real concerns about public safety and impending fire danger when they decide to implement a PSPS event, we believe there is a better way to communicate and mitigate these outages. We look forward to working with the CPUC, Edison, and all of the stakeholders involved, including our impacted community members, to make sure any future PSPS events are as painless as possible.”
SCE has been called upon by the CPUC to appear at a public hearing Jan. 26, 2021, to explain the events of the shutdowns and to go into possible solutions to these concerns.
The public hearing will be on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. Community members may tune in here and can call in for public comment at 800-857-1917, passcode: 5180519#.
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Microgrids are the future.
Absolutely there should be a LOUD public outcry over SCE’s running roughshod over citizens that they obviously care nothing about. Every time they shut down central Canyon Country, people say “What possible logic was there to shutting down a flatland residential area where there is a virtually zero risk of an electric company-caused wildfire?” I agree there is considerable risk of a power line-caused fire in the wild areas south of here during such heavy wind events, but not in central residential Canyon Country. They shut off my power at 2am on Tuesday morning but they didn’t shut down the wildfire-prone areas till much later Tuesday. And even though they shut down flatland Canyon Country, they never shut down the uphill areas to our north the entire time. I live off Camp Plenty near Delight Street, and last night, when a huge part of all SCV was dark, all the houses north of Four Oaks Street had light all night. What sense is there to that? There was a time in 1998 when a fire went through the area between Canyon High and the Blue Sky neighborhood uphill but SCE didn’t shut down that whole area yesterday. What sense is there to that? Every one! Get up in arms over SCE’s ridiculous conduct!
I support SCE 100%. Don’t care for the power shutdowns at all. But this is totally expected after the litigation they we’re dragged through, and we can do our part to mitigate future losses. SCE is damned if they do, damed if they don’t.