Wildfire season has arrived in the western United States, with wildfires burning in Washington, Oregon, and California. Public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) are already in full swing in some areas, including the City of Talent, Oregon, which has experienced six power shutoffs already this summer.
Electric utilities must prepare for the threat of wildfires both this year and in future years, as climate change continues to create hotter and dryer summers. They must also be aware of the need for electric power during evacuations and wildfire response plans, including firefighting and containment.
Wildfire risk from faulted power lines increases each summer as the climate warms. Here, firefighters prepare to battle a wildfire.
In the coming weeks, we will present several best practices that electric utilities can implement to significantly reduce the risk of their power lines igniting wildfires. The best practices include understanding wildfire risk by researching, analyzing, and documenting necessary data; preparing to reduce the likelihood of a fault during moderate, high, and extreme wildfire conditions; and preparing a response for when a fault occurs. We will also present several best practices that electric utilities need to implement to support at-risk communities.
The first step is for electric utilities to implement a new position within their ranks: Wildfire Awareness Manager. This new, non-traditional position will establish and oversee the ongoing wildfire awareness plan, including a fault response strategy, a power outage awareness strategy, and a power shutoff minimization strategy. Their role will vary by season and will encompass research-driven data collection, team development and leadership, and innovative thinking.
Let’s take a closer look at the Wildfire Awareness Manager position to gain an understanding of how this role will benefit electric utilities.
A Non-Traditional Position
Electric utilities may want to hire an expert in transmission and distribution line design and customer outages for the role of Wildfire Awareness Manager to ensure that the wildfire awareness plan doesn’t interfere with traditional reliability metrics, CAIDI, SAIDI, etc. However, there are many benefits to hiring an individual with experience in environmental management, rather than a background in traditional electric utility focus areas.
This specialist will focus on the prevention of wildfires ignited by faulted power lines. Their expertise will allow the wildfire awareness plan to include effective preventative measures regardless of traditional reliability metrics.
Electric utilities must come to terms with eliminating some reliability metrics during high and extreme wildfire conditions. Though not traditional, this approach will allow utilities to effectively reduce the risk of their lines igniting wildfires.
Wildfire Awareness Manager: Roles and Responsibilities
The Wildfire Awareness Manager will coordinate the wildfire awareness plan and oversee the fault response strategy if a fault occurs during moderate, high, or extreme wildfire conditions. The details of the fault response strategy may differ based on the severity of the wildfire risk. This will be outlined in a future post, so stay tuned.
They will also establish and oversee a fault response team that launches whenever a fault occurs on a transmission line or a distribution line during high or extreme risk wildfire conditions. Fault response teams will also launch when power outages occur. Fault response teams should include electric utility personnel and contractors that are familiar with the area where the fault or power outage occurred.
During a calendar year in the Pacific Northwest, the Wildfire Awareness Manager would be accountable for the following:
October and November:
Analyze the prior year’s wildfire data to identify successful actions, near misses, and lessons learned.
Ensure that activities that were implemented to minimize the possibility of wildfire ignition in high risk areas were effective.
Assess wildfires within the utility’ service area, and in other areas, to understand the experiences of all electric utilities. Within the service area, this includes wildfires ignited by all causes.
December:
Present an effectiveness review to the Executive Committee, identifying successful actions, near misses, lessons learned, and future enhancements.
Include a discussion of wildfires in other areas in this presentation.
Request authorization and funding to implement short term projects/activities that will further reduce the possibility of wildfire ignition.
January, February, and March:
Work with utility teams (Transmission, Distribution, Protection, Vegetation Management, and System Operations) to ensure that short term projects/activities that have been authorized by the Executive Committee are completed as planned.
Establish contracts with fault response teams to ensure that eyes are on a transmission or distribution line fault within 15 minutes of a trip out during high risk wildfire conditions.
April and May:
Maintain an awareness of ongoing projects/activities. Work with utility teams to ensure the wildfire mitigation strategy is set for wildfire season.
Conduct and oversee a wildfire awareness drill.
Upon completion of the wildfire awareness drill, inform the Executive Committee of the status of authorized projects/activities and readiness for the wildfire season.
June through September:
Oversee monitoring of environmental conditions and prepare to initiate special actions when the risk of wildfires is high.
Activate fault response plan and teams as needed.
The Wildfire Expert for Your Utility
The Wildfire Awareness Manager will be responsible for representing the utility when wildfires occur within their service area. They will be the expert on all wildfire-related issues in your service area so that they can confidently lead press conferences and public forums.
As the public face of your company on wildfire issues, they must be comfortable discussing wildfire ignition, wildfire prevention power shutoffs, and other electric utility concerns.
They may also present the wildfire awareness plan and fault response strategies implemented to regulating agencies, insurance companies, or legal teams, to assure them that the company is doing all it can to reduce wildfire risk.
How Utilities Benefit from a Wildfire Awareness Manager
The Wildfire Awareness Manager provides many benefits to an electric utility. The research aspects of their role, which we will outline in an upcoming article, provide a baseline for utilities to lean on when updating wildfire preparedness plans. The data gathered will inform enhanced operations when wildfire conditions worsen.
Employing a non-electrical specialist in this leadership position demonstrates that the utility prioritizes wildfire prevention as their primary responsibility during wildfire season. As wildfire insurance rates increase, utilities will benefit from showing a commitment to wildfire prevention through verifiable data and strategic plans. In addition, the Wildfire Awareness Manager will be able to present the wildfire awareness plan and fault response strategy to a legal defense team, should the utility face legal challenges for potentially igniting a wildfire.
Our next few posts will continue to outline the roles and responsibilities of the Wildfire Awareness Manager, when preparing an updated wildfire awareness plan. Check out our blog or follow us on LinkedIn for weekly updates. Or check out our latest whitepaper, 10 Best Practices to Reduce the Risk of Power Line Wildfires, available to download for free on our website.
Interested in learning more about how Prescient can help your company reduce the risk of wildfires ignited by faulted power lines? Contact us to schedule a free consultation today.
This article was written in collaboration with Prescient's Lead Editor Alyssa Sleva-Horine.
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