San Francisco: Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced June 11 that the California Public Utilities Commission had approved its comprehensive microgrid proposals, which are designed to reduce the number of customers affected by Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events and mitigate the impacts to those who remain affected. A PSPS may be used when severe weather threatens a portion of the electric system and PG&E determines it's necessary to turn off electricity to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.
For 2020, PG&E's microgrid solutions focus primarily on building grid resilience and keeping the power on for customers in communities that have a high likelihood of experiencing a future PSPS event. To that end, PG&E has reserved more than 450 megawatts of temporary mobile generation to be deployed in four ways detailed below, each with a unique objective:
• Substation microgrids: PG&E is preparing 63 substations to be ready to connect temporary generators as need arises during PSPS events, subject to operational logistics and generator availability. In addition to temporary generation, in certain instances, PG&E will leverage existing local, permanent generation sources to power safe-to-energize substations and customers during PSPS events, including PG&E's Humboldt Bay Generating Station and a third-party owned natural gas plant in Red Bluff, California.
• Temporary microgrids: PG&E will serve designated areas like "main street" corridors by rapidly isolating them from the wider grid and re-energizing them using temporary generation during an outage. These temporary microgrids will be used in selected communities where PG&E can safely provide electricity to centrally located resources such as medical facilities and pharmacies, police and fire stations, gas stations, and banks. Construction is underway at four temporary microgrid generation sites, and PG&E anticipates having 10 sites ready to energize by the end of 2020.
• Backup power support: PG&E will deploy temporary generation on an as-needed basis to critical customers for whom the failure of existing backup power would directly or indirectly affect public safety. Deployment would be dependent on generator availability and subject to operational considerations. Additionally, PG&E is developing grid-based solutions where possible and supporting hospital readiness and resiliency planning, to ensure that those hospitals remain energized in a PSPS event.
• Community Resource Centers: PG&E will provide Community Resource Centers to support customers and communities affected by PSPS events. Some of these facilities may need temporary generation in order to give customers a climate-controlled location where they can charge devices and receive refreshments.
The CPUC also approved PG&E's new Community Microgrid Enablement Program in which PG&E will partner with local communities to identify and build multi-customer microgrids serving local critical facilities and/or customers with disabilities or functional needs that are not already served by other microgrid solutions offered by PG&E. The program will help communities design microgrids by providing enhanced technical support, improved access to relevant utility information, financial support for qualifying projects, and tariffs to support the accounting for the flows of services, energy, and costs among the parties.