This bill requires the investor-owned utilities’ (IOUs) to add public transit operations to the list of priority customers during rotating outages, and the list of Critical Facilities and Critical Infrastructure during public safety power shutoffs (PSPS).
Existing law requires the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to establish priorities among the types or categories of customers of every electrical corporation (Investor Owned Utility (IOU)), and among the uses of electricity by those customers, to determine which of those customers and uses provide the most important public benefits and serve the greatest public need, and to categorize all other customers and uses in order of descending priority based on these standards.
Existing law requires the CPUC, in establishing those priorities, to consider the economic, social, and other effects of a temporary discontinuance in electrical service to certain customers or for certain uses. If an IOU experiences a shortage of capacity or capability and is unable to meet all demands by its customers, existing law requires the CPUC to order that service be temporarily reduced by an amount that reflects the established priorities for the duration of the shortage.
AB 463 would require the CPUC, in establishing those priorities, to also consider the economic, social equity, and mobility impacts of a temporary discontinuance in electrical service to the customers that rely on electrical service to operate public transit vehicles.
Existing law requires each IOU to submit an annual wildfire mitigation plan to the Wildfire Safety Division for review and approval. The California Energy Infrastructure Safety Act establishes the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (OEIS) within the Natural Resources Agency, and provides that as of July 1, 2021, the OEIS is the successor to, and is vested with, all of the duties, powers, and responsibilities of the Wildfire Safety Division of the CPUC.
Existing law requires that each wildfire mitigation plan include, among other things, the IOU’s protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety, including related to mitigating those public safety impacts on critical first responders, health and communication infrastructure, and customers who receive medical baseline allowances.
This bill would require that those protocols also include protocols related to mitigating those public safety impacts on public transit vehicle charging infrastructure.
Full bill text and related information.
