‘This is about greed;’ Newsom blames power shutoffs on utilities

‘This is about greed;’ Newsom blames power shutoffs on utilities

by Josh Cain

Hundreds of thousands of Californians are preparing to evacuate their homes and possibly go without electricty as powerful winds once again blast the state with heat and dry weather, creating an extreme risk of wildfires this week.

Governor Gavin Newsom said during a news conference Thursday, Oct. 24, in Los Angeles that the state’s three largest power companies were planning possible shutoffs for at least 527,000 customers.

That’s the most since Pacific Gas & Electric turned off electricity for millions of people in the abrupt Northern California blackout earlier this month. Electric utilities and state officials hope the planned outages will reduce the number of fires started by power lines emitting sparks in high winds.

From state offices in downtown L.A., Newsom said he was deeply frustrated with PG&E and other utilities. He blamed them for the power crisis consuming his first term as governor, saying they’re responsible for decades of “mismanagement” of the state’s power system.

MORE: This map shows where SCE is considering shutting off power

“It is infuriating,” Newsom said.

The governor lit in to the companies — including PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. He suggested large corporate owned utilities were incapable of meeting the challenge of an increasingly hot and dry state, where a spark from electric equipment could lead to death and destruction on a massive scale.

“It’s more than just climate change. It’s about the failure of capitalism to address climate change,” Newsom said. “It’s about decades of mismanagement. It’s a story about greed.”

The governor and other state officials on Thursday detailed weeks of back-and-forth talks with the three utilities to set standards for how future power shutoffs should work.

Public officials, seemingly caught off guard by the scope of the PG&E blackout that started Oct. 9, are now trying to hash out standards the companies have to meet.

Those include the number of days in advance they must inform the public of power shutoffs and the weather conditions that require them, said Mark Ghilarducci, the director of California’s Office of Emergency Management.

The problem is not just getting notified that a power shutoff can happen — it’s also about when the utilities must power down to prevent fires from happening in the first place.

Ghilarducci pointed to the recent Saddleridge fire that started in Sylmar on Oct. 10 — residents, many who noticed high winds that night, said they were surprised Edison didn’t turn of their power. That was after the company warned thousands the same day they were considering power shutdowns.

By 9 p.m., some watched as a ring of fire expanded from the base of an Edison power pylon in the Sylmar neighborhood, then spread to Granada Hills and Porter Ranch. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated, nearly 8,800 acres were burned, and 18 structures were destroyed as a result.

The utilities need to “drive down the inconsistency of this process,” Ghilarducci said.

“If you do that, you increase their ability to make the right call.”

On Thursday, among the three largest utilities, Edison was planning the largest potential power shutoff — about 308,000 of their customers could have their lights turned off. Nearly 20,000 already had by Thursday afternoon.

This story is developing, check back for updates.

All credit goes to Josh Cain Originally published on https://www.dailynews.com