State regulators have ordered Southern California Edison to identify fire hazards in its unused transmission lines like the century-old equipment suspected of causing the devastating Eaton wildfire.
Edison also must tell regulators how its 355 miles of out-of-service transmission lines in high-risk areas will be used in the future, according to a document released by the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety on Dec. 23.
Government regulations require utilities to remove abandoned cables so that they do not pose a public hazard. Edison officials said they are not removing the Eaton Canyon line because they believe it will be used in the future. He last ruled in 1971.
The Energy Infrastructure Safety Office said Edison should determine which unused transmission lines are at the highest risk of fires and develop a plan to reduce that risk. In some cases that may mean removing equipment altogether.
While the OEIS report focused on Edison, the agency said it would require other state power companies to do the same for their defunct transmission lines.
Scott Johnson, a spokesman for Edison, said Monday that the company was already reviewing the out-of-service lines and planned to respond to requests from regulators. He said Edison often keeps lines idle “to support long-term system needs, such as future power installations, backup capacity or regional growth.”
“If the lines are not working and are identified as not being used in the future, they are removed,” he said.
Johnson said that since 2018, Edison has removed redundant power lines seven times and provided a list of those projects.
An investigation into the cause of the Eaton wildfire by local and regional fire officials has not been released. Edison said the leading theory is that a defunct transmission line in Eaton Canyon was briefly energized on the night of Jan. 7, sparking the fire.
Unused lines can become energized on parallel electrified lines through a process called induction.
The Eaton wildfire has killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and structures in Altadena.
After the fires, Edison said he added some equipment to the old transmission lines that were no longer operational. Additional devices give any unexpected voltage on the line more places to dissipate into the ground, making it less likely to start a fire.
The OEIS issued its latest directive after Edison executives told the agency they have no plans to remove any decommissioned lines between now and 2028, the report said.
State regulators and utilities have long known that old transmission lines can fuel wildfires.
The Times reported how Edison and other utilities defeated a federal regulatory plan, introduced in 2001, that would have forced companies to remove abandoned lines unless they could prove they would reuse them.
In its report, OEIS noted that it would require Edison and other power companies to provide information on how often each idle line was inspected and how long it took to correct problems found in those inspections.
Edison said he inspected the unused line in Eaton Canyon every year before the fire – more often than he inspected the live lines. The company declined to provide The Times with documentation of that test.
In the OEIS report, energy security regulators said they expect to approve Edison’s wildfire mitigation plan in the next three years despite the problems they found with the approach.
For example, the report noted that Edison is behind in replacing or strengthening aging and deteriorating transmission and distribution poles. Administrators said the backlog “involves multiple work orders [Edison’s] the most dangerous regions.” A circuit is a line or other infrastructure that provides an electrical path.
Officials said the company must work to reduce that backlog. They also criticized Edison management for not incorporating lessons learned from the January 7 wildfires into the company’s fire protection plans.
Johnson, the Edison spokesman, said the company has already advanced a backlog of pole replacements. He said the company also planned to tell regulators more about lessons learned after the Eaton fire.
Under state law, OEIS must approve a wildfire prevention utility plan before it can issue a company a safety certificate that protects the company from liability if its equipment ignites a catastrophic fire.
The OEIS issued Edison’s final safety certificate less than a month before the Eaton fire – despite the company having thousands of open work ordersincluding one of the transmission lines above Altadena, at that time.
Edison offers to pay for the damages caused by the victims of the Eaton fire and several have already accepted the offer. The agency says that because it held a safety certificate at the time of the fire, it expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the state fund’s $21 billion payment.
If that fund does not pay the damage, a a law passed this year causing Edison to raise electricity prices to make up the difference.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers passed legislation to establish a federal fund and safety certificate program to protect utilities from foreclosures if their equipment starts costly wildfires. Critics say the rules they went a lotwhich may leave utilities financially vulnerable to fires caused by their negligence.
Edison is fighting hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the Eaton fire. The company says it is being proactive in maintaining the security of its system before the fire.
Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International, the company’s parent company, told The Times this month that he believed the company was “working well” in its system before the fire.
“Accidents can happen,” Pizarro said. “Perfection is not something you can achieve, but wisdom is the standard we hold to.”
