California expands protections for utility shutdowns during heatwaves

from Alejandro LazoCalMatters

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California prohibits utility companies from cutting off power to customers who are behind on their bills when it’s dangerously hot outside — a key safety protection. A loss of electricity in some rural areas can also mean a loss of water, and in cities, the lack of a way to cool down can be dangerous, even deadly, when the hot weather lasts for several days.

California regulators concluded over a year ago that rules protecting delinquent customers from blackouts during heat waves are not strong enough. They ordered the state’s largest utilities to offer better safeguards.

When the utilities unveiled their plan in December, their proposals changed almost nothing, the commission said ended on Thursdayfinding that their proposal “does not offer sufficient health protection to payers.”

The commission had set a May 1 deadline for the new rules. Utilities missed it and consumer advocates made urgent requests to force an action.

Like another stretch of dangerous heat covered the stateThe California Public Utilities Commission wrote stricter rules on its own. The committee voted 4-0 lowered the temperature at which utilities must stop shutting off power to delinquent customers from 100 to 90 degrees, and ordered utilities to adopt a more protective, region-specific heat standard within six months.

A battle to define extreme heat

During a record heat wave two years ago – the hottest July in California history — The Public Utilities Network, a consumer group, asked the Public Utilities Commission to revise its definition in extreme heat. To the group urgent request claims that “heat kills more people directly than any other weather-related hazard.”

The rules it’s already banned electric companies to disconnect residential customers for non-payment if forecast temperatures soar above 100 degrees within 72 hours.

But a single statewide threshold, the group argues, doesn’t account for how differently Californians experience heat depending on where they live.

Regulators declined to treat the request as an emergency, but ordered the utilities to come up with a plan to change the 100-degree threshold, working with advocates and others.

The utilities suggested for use CalHeatScorea newly created state tool that rates heat by ZIP code — from level 0 to 4 — using local health data and historical impacts, taking into account data about nearby cooling centers, as well as the number of children and seniors who may be more susceptible to extreme heat.

The problem: Utilities proposed setting the outage threshold at Level 3 — a higher bar than advocates wanted — and keeping at 100 degrees as a backstop when the index is not available.

Advocates filed protests seeking a wider safety net, arguing for a lower level 2 index score and a fallback threshold of 90 degrees.

The utilities said they could not meet the deadline because CalHeatScore’s own data system, operated by the state’s Office of Environmental Hazard Assessment, was not yet ready to support them. Advocates countered that the utilities offered little evidence of adherence to the higher 100-degree threshold.

By May, with utilities still behind schedule, The Utility Reform Network joined forces with the San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Affordable Technology, asking the committee to intervene.

The Commission sided with the defenders

This week, the commission rejected the utility’s proposal, siding with the advocates. The path the utilities were proposing would be “no different” from past practice. The resolution notes that the extreme heat threshold is already below 100 degrees in 41 of California’s 58 counties.

A 90-degree day may be routine in dry inland cities like Bakersfield or Fresno, but such temperatures can be atypically dangerous in coastal or mountain communities, where fewer homes have air conditioning and people are less used to the heat.

San Francisco, for example, defines heat as extreme when temperatures rise above 85 degrees. In far northwestern Del Norte County, extreme heat means anything above 76.8 degrees, the commission said.

“A threshold temperature level should be more protective for residents in areas of the state that are not accustomed to high temperatures,” the commission wrote in its resolution.

Utilities are moving toward compliance

While the utilities wanted a tighter safety net for customers, they now emphasize that they will adhere to the more protective standard.

Last December, major utilities owned by large investors argued together that extending consumer protection to lower heat scores would stop all-too-frequent disconnections, deepen unpaid balances and add costs without a comparable health benefit. In a January filing, according to a PG&E spokesman, the utility argued that the 90-degree threshold was “excessive.”

Protections will only apply to suspensions for unpaid accounts. They would not prevent outages caused by equipment failure, shutdowns to prevent wildfires or other emergencies. Still, advocates say the changes are important.

“When the power goes out in a home, it can kind of have a cascading effect of problems on the tenants,” said Jason Zeller, an attorney with the Utility Consumers Action Network. “If tenants don’t have electric service, they can be evicted; if they have children, they can lose custody of them.”

Reached before the vote, all three utilities said they were willing to comply with the commission’s new rules. Edison said the resolution would strengthen protections during extreme heat and that it was prepared to change its shutdown policies. SDG&E said it supports the added safeguards and will comply with the commission’s final requirements.

“The disconnect is a last resort at PG&E, only after repeated attempts to contact customers and offer payment plans and assistance programs,” said PG&E spokeswoman Adrienne Moore. The region-specific standard is expected to be introduced within six months.

The commission’s independent Office of Public Advocates pushed for stronger protections throughout the process, formally opposing the utility’s plan. Director Linda Serizawa said the vote would give consumers “protection that kicks in when they need it most.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.