Wildfires were already a growing threat, but a series of new challenges have emerged amidst a worsening global pandemic in 2020.
If the past nine months have taught the power utility industry anything, it is that even the slightest vulnerability can open the flood gates to a much larger problem. As wildfire season encroaches on us midway through the coronavirus pandemic, utilities need to be more proactive about this risk than ever before.
In 2019, the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) reported 7,860 wildfires that ravaged a total area of about 260,000 acres and cost the state upward of US$163 million in suppression efforts alone. In just the first six months of 2020, the department has already reported nearly 3,000 individual fires spanning almost 20,000 acres — and the state hasn’t even hit peak season yet.
At a national level, The National Interagency Fire Center reported an 18% spike in the number of wildfires occurring from Jan. 1 through July 13, 2020, compared to 2019.
Utilities find themselves at the center of this challenge. As climate change produces more variability in weather patterns, preventive measures that were previously adequate have put some utilities over the threshold of tolerable risk in recent years.
As a result, North American utilities throughout the West are working harder than ever to identify, assess and correct risk. This involves operations across the organization.
Wildfire Mitigation and Response During COVID-19
In ongoing efforts to install mitigating technology and harden the grid, line workers in vulnerable states have already incorporated social distancing and other safety measures. In our Lineman’s Supplement, our field editor Amy Fischbach discusses the year-round efforts taken by line workers to build resiliency into the grid against wildfire threats in Linemen Fuel Fight Against Wildfires.
Such efforts include installing covered conductor in place of bare wires and inspecting overhead transmission and distribution lines and equipment, both from the ground and aerially via helicopter and drone. In addition to grid hardening, line workers are rapidly supporting efforts in strategic undergrounding and grid reconfiguration. Vegetation management activities are a cornerstone of the work done in the field, involving pruning and removing hazardous vegetation.
Preparing for and building resilience against natural disasters such as wildfire is one thing; response during and after events is another. In his piece, Pandemic Continues Its Impact, T&D Staff Editor Jeff Postelwait makes note of challenges surrounding regional travel.
“One of the utilities’ most basic response strategies in the time of natural disaster is mutual assistance,” he writes. This entails utility crews from other regions traveling to the site of a major disaster to help local crews respond. As I write this, the United States has the highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the world, and it’s not clear how soon late summer restrictions will ease the severity of the pandemic here. This raises questions about how mutual aid networks and traveling fire crews alike will be able to respond to emergencies this fall.
Risk-Informed vs. Compliance Approaches
State regulators are also honing in on their role in supporting customers and utilities in this challenge. In February, California utilities submitted their wildfire mitigation plans to the CPUC’s Wildfire Safety Division. These required utilities to provide data and analysis of threats alongside their safety proposals.
As of March 2020, Oregon is pushing its utilities to advance their own planning through the Oregon Wildfire and Electric Cooperative, a series of workshops on topics of risk and system hardening. The effectiveness of these different approaches will be determined in 2020 and beyond.
Tellingly, both efforts strive to push utilities in shifting from compliance-based to risk-informed mitigation efforts, with analysis of location, asset age and health, and other risk factors.
On their own, utilities are well on their way to shifting their approaches. You can read more about how utilities SCE, SDG&E, and Rocky Mountain Power, are individually updating their strategies in the Lineman's supplement.
Update: T&D World Leadership Forum
Lastly, we are pleased to announce that the T&D World Leadership Forum: Wildfires & Risk Mitigation is going virtual Dec. 7-8, 2020. This topic is too important for us to wait any longer to share with our audience.
This utility-led event will advance the entire industry through a serious, comprehensive and compelling dialogue on the issues, best practices and potential solutions for utility wildfires. For two days, we will host a series of webinars, podcasts and discussion forums with industry leaders showcasing technology, case studies, and experience and insights. The keynote speakers for this event are global experts and will still be joining us virtually from Australia: Phillip Bryant from AusNet Services and Dene Ward with Powercor. I believe we can all learn a lot from their experiences. Other topics discussed at this event will include: risk management, corrective actions, ground-breaking technologies, analytics, policy/regulatory considerations, as well as industry and government collaboration. No matter your role in utility wildfire mitigation programs, this event is for you.
Registration is complimentary, and you can view the full agenda at https://leadershipforum.tdworld.com.
