Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings

To help keep our communities in and around high fire-risk areas safe, we have enhanced safety settings on our powerlines. They are known as Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, or EPSS.

These settings detect hazards on the powerline and shut off power quickly to prevent an ignition. By preventing ignitions, we can stop wildfires before they have a chance to start.

*Based on an evaluation of the effectiveness of EPSS under conditions of elevated likelihood of destructive fire outcomes (R3 Fire Potential Index rating), compared to the 2018-2020 average prior to the establishment of EPSS.

By stopping ignitions, we help prevent wildfires from starting and spreading.

These safety settings will be enabled when there is an increased wildfire risk.

This is most likely from May to November, but wildfire risk can exist year-round in some areas.

We review how our safety settings perform daily. We will disable safety settings if weather conditions don't meet the need for EPSS and it is safe to do so. This helps to prevent unnecessary outages.

EPSS helps keep you safer, but you may experience unplanned power outages. Many things can cause an unplanned outage. This includes hazards like a tree branch or animal contacting a powerline. Hazards could cause an outage on any powerline, including those without EPSS. Powerlines with EPSS help prevent wildfires by turning off power quickly.

We do not expect these settings to impact customer bills.

We're working hard to provide our customers and communities support and reduce the impact of outages. We have resources and tools available to help you.