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AB-3181 Electricity: outages.(2023-2024)

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Date Published: 02/16/2024 09:00 PM
AB3181:v99#DOCUMENT


CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill
No. 3181

Introduced by Assembly Member Pellerin

February 16, 2024

An act to add Section 761.4 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 3181, as introduced, Pellerin. Electricity: outages.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the commission to adopt inspection, maintenance, repair, and replacement standards for the distribution systems of electrical corporations in order to provide high-quality, safe, and reliable service. Existing law requires the commission to conduct a review to determine whether the standards have been met and to perform the review after every major outage. Existing law requires the commission to require each electrical corporation to report annually on its compliance with those standards.
This bill would require, if one or more customers served by an electrical distribution circuit experiences 4 or more discrete electrical outages, as defined, during a single calendar year, the electrical corporation that owns and operates that circuit to perform a review of that circuit to determine the cause of the outages and implement system improvements to reduce the anticipated risk of future outages on that circuit below the threshold level of 4 outages per calendar year. The bill would require the electrical corporation to make the findings of the circuit review, the scope of work expected to be performed to reduce the anticipated risk of future outages on that circuit, and the expected reduction in the risk of future outages resulting from that work available to the impacted customers and the city, county, or city and county in which the circuit is located.
Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of the bill or a commission action implementing its requirements 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.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: YES  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) To reduce the risk of utility-caused wildfires, electrical corporations have developed and implemented a broad array of system hardening and safety measures. As electrical corporations have refined and reduced the size, scope, and frequency of multiday planned public safety power shutoff events, there has been a dramatic increase in the number and frequency of shorter duration electrical outages resulting from the enabling of protective equipment and device (fast trip) settings.
(2) In 2022 there were over 2,300 fast trip electrical outages impacting over 770,000 unique customers, and in 2023, over 2,260 outages impacted over 726,000 unique customers. In 2023, customers on four circuits experienced 20 or more outages over the course of the year, one circuit experienced 29 separate outages, and several circuits had 7 or more outages in a single month.
(3) While these measures have reduced the risk of utility-caused wildfire, the frequent loss of electricity has significantly disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Californians, and declines in electrical reliability will negatively impact the state’s ability to achieve its climate goals.
(4) Electrical corporations experienced great success in reducing the number of electrical outages for some of those circuits that experienced the greatest number of outages in 2022. However, customers on many other circuits experienced even more frequent outages in 2023 than they had previously experienced.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that electrical corporations continuously seek to improve the safety and reliability of their electrical transmission and distribution systems while endeavoring to increase the affordability of rates for their customers.

SEC. 2.

 Section 761.4 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:

761.4.
 (a) If one or more customers served by an electrical corporation’s electrical distribution circuit experiences four or more discrete electrical outages, each of which is one hour or longer in duration, during a single calendar year, the electrical corporation that owns and operates that circuit shall perform a review of that circuit to determine the cause of the outages and implement system improvements to reduce the anticipated risk of future outages on that circuit below the threshold level of four outages per calendar year.
(b) The electrical corporation shall make the findings of the circuit review performed pursuant to subdivision (a), the scope of work expected to be performed to reduce the anticipated risk of future electrical outages on that circuit, and the expected reduction in the risk of future outages resulting from that work available to the impacted customers and the city, county, or city and county in which the circuit is located.
(c) This section does not impair the use of an electrical corporation’s wildfire risk reduction tools, but instead ensures that electrical corporations continuously undertake system improvements to improve electrical reliability and that customer deenergization is a last resort to avoid wildfire risk.
(d) For purposes of this section, “discrete electrical outages” are electrical outages that occurred on or after January 1, 2024, including, but not limited to, those that result from planned public safety power shutoff outages intended to reduce the risk of wildfire ignition or unplanned outages resulting from the enabling of protective equipment and device fast trip settings. “Discrete electrical outages” do not include electrical outages resulting from system maintenance activities or disruptions caused by storms.

SEC. 3.

 No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.