And a utility may cut power because of a risk somewhere in its network that customers can’t see. It’s not always possible for utilities to fine-tune areas where power shutoffs happen.

California has been a test bed of sorts for public safety power shutoffs. The state’s public utility commission approved them in 2012 as a way to mitigate the potential impacts of utility equipment-induced wildfires, and it has issued regulations guiding when utilities can de-energize power lines. The regulations require power companies to notify customers in advance and submit detailed reports within 10 days after each planned blackout.

Millions of Californians have experienced these shutdowns over the past decade. A 2023 review by PSE Healthy Energy, an independent research institute, found that the most-affected counties, mainly in Southern California, average four to five public safety outages yearly, which on average last 48 hours.

Oregon has followed suit, adopting public safety shutdown rules in 2022, but many other jurisdictions do not yet have formal protocols in place. Instead, these critical decisions rest with utilities. Developing sophisticated plans for public safety outages requires extensive knowledge of a utility’s territory and accurate assessments of which zones are high-risk areas.

Utilities, however, don’t always have abundant sensors in low-voltage distribution grids – the portion of the system that brings power into neighborhoods – and may lack extremely granular control over individual components. In fact, unplanned outages often must be manually reported. Many utilities are installing smart meters, some of which can automatically report outages back to the utility.

Power providers are also taking other steps to strengthen their grids against disasters, such as burying power lines. But depending on the location, this strategy can easily cost up to US$1 million per mile for low-voltage distribution grids and millions of dollars per mile for high-voltage transmission lines. These projects require intricate cost-benefit calculations, and their costs ultimately will trickle down to electricity consumers.

For some people, losing power is a minor inconvenience. For others, it can mean the difference between life or death if they need electricity to keep essential medicine refrigerated, charge a portable oxygen concentrator or maintain their home temperature within a safe range.

Utilities should keep in contact with customers during every step of a public safety shutoff, starting with alerting them to charge essential devices and take other preparatory steps. They also should move people who have medical conditions or other issues that require access to power out of the blackout zone.

To make that kind of cooperation possible, utilities will need better insight into the state of the distribution grid, more detailed models of their systems, and improved measurement and sensing strategies that can help them develop accurate and granular assessments of wildfire risk.

Finally, utilities will need to make their decisions more transparent. No one likes losing power, so it is essential for ratepayers to understand why and how these outages happen and what their utility is doing to provide power as safely and reliably as possible.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Kyri Baker, University of Colorado Boulder

Read more:
Shutting off power to reduce wildfire risk on windy days isn’t a simple decision – an energy expert explains the trade-offs electric utilities face

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Maine voters don’t like their electric utilities, but they balked at paying billions to buy them out

Kyri Baker receives funding from the Department of Energy, the Sloan Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.