TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Mark Danaj, City Manager
FROM:
Tony Olmos, Director of Public Works
SUBJECT:Title
Report on Power Reliability and Southern California Edison's Capital Improvement Program (Public Works Director Olmos).
RECEIVE REPORT
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Receive Report regarding Power Reliability in the City of Manhattan Beach and Update on Southern California Edison's Capital Improvement Program
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this action.
BACKGROUND:
Within the past few years, residents and businesses in the City of Manhattan Beach have been subjected to an escalated amount of service disruptions related to the electrical service provided by Southern California Edison (SCE). Some of these are planned outages in order to make equipment repairs and the rest are unplanned outages caused by various factors. In any case, the service reliability provided by SCE to the Manhattan Beach community has been a source of frustration for City's residents, businesses, and visitors.
Since mid-2013, the City has taken several actions in an effort to improve power reliability in Manhattan Beach. On August 20, 2013, City Council directed staff to send a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) asking for their assistance. Councilmember Lessor, then Mayor, took an active role in communicating with other stakeholders and following-up with the PUC. As a result, Councilmember Lesser attended meetings with PUC President Michael Peevey on October 11, 2013 and on December 16, 2013, which was also attended by State Assembly Member Muratsuchi, SCE's CEO, and other stakeholders. In addition, there have been at least 5 meetings between City and SCE staff at all levels to continue the dialogue and coordination of SCE planned projects.
DISCUSSION:
Power reliability to the City of Manhattan Beach has declined from what it was in the past and declined below the community standard for acceptable service. While outages may be planned or unplanned, when they occur they are an inconvenience to residents and impact many businesses and municipal services and facilities.
Residents may be affected by food spoilage, not being able to prepare meals, medical devices becoming inoperable or students not having access to their home computers. For businesses, outages result in lost revenue and loss of the ability to service their customer base. Restaurants may be forced to close. For municipal services, personnel may need to be dispatched to direct traffic, respond to security alarms or be called in to monitor operation of the municipal utilities.
SCE records sustained unplanned outages in the following two ways:
- SAIFI: Number of times the average customer is interrupted by Sustained outages each year.
- SAIDI: Cumulative amount of time the average customer is interrupted by Sustained outages each year.
SCE analyzed power reliability for Manhattan Beach and prepared a report titled Circuit Reliability Review for Manhattan Beach (Attachment 1). As shown in the report, Manhattan Beach experienced an average of 1.3 outages (SAIFI) and an average duration of 140.7 minutes (SAIDI) in 2013. The SCE system-wide average was SAIFI of 0.9 and SAIDI of 102.6. The South Bay was a little higher than Manhattan Beach with a SAIFI of 1.49 and SAIDI of 142.15. From the 35 SCE districts, South Bay ranks 5th worst in frequency and 10th worst in duration.
Per the Circuit Reliability Review report, contributions to SAIFI (Frequency) by outage cause for Manhattan Beach were:
- Equipment Failures - 54.3%
- i.e. transformer, switch, or conductors
- Third party - 26.0%
- i.e. balloon, car hit pole, dig-in
- Operations - 17.5%
- i.e. urgent maintenance w/o 3-day notice
- Other - 2.2%
- i.e. patrolled but no cause found
Contributions to SAIDI (Duration) by outage cause for Manhattan Beach were:
- Equipment Failures - 64.7%
- i.e. transformer, switch, or conductors
- Third party - 24.1%
- i.e. balloon, car hit pole, dig-in
- Operations - 6.6%
- i.e. urgent maintenance w/o 3-day notice
- Other - 4.6%
- i.e. patrolled but no cause found
SCE has acknowledged that Manhattan Beach has some of the most pressing electrical infrastructure needs and supports making improvements in Manhattan Beach one of their highest priorities. As a result, SCE has developed their 2014 Capital Improvement Plan Map (CIP) as shown on Attachment 2 and has committed a significant amount of resources to complete it.
In summary, SCE's (CIP) identifies the following major projects to take place in the City this year and most likely rolling into next year:
- Replace Underground Structures at 7 locations
- Upgrade 6 Circuits from 4kV to 16kV
o Involves replacement of poles approximately 660 poles and new wiring
o New poles are approximately 5 foot taller in some cases and may require raising the wires by that amount
- Replace 147 Old Wood Poles with New Wood Poles
- Install Fuses at 24 Locations
- Retire El Porto Substation
The upgrade of the 6 circuits is the largest of these projects. Attachment 3 shows the affected circuit conversion areas along with a more detailed schedule. According to SCE, circuit conversions are necessary in order to improve power capacity by converting the circuits from 4kV to 16kV and retiring El Porto Substation. SCE feels that this will have a significant benefit towards power reliability.
City staff is working with SCE in order to issue construction permits. However, there are still some outstanding issues that need to be worked out to the City's satisfaction before permits are issues. SCE is to provide specific locations where the overhead wires may be vertically adjusted, the City is to review and concur with SCE's community outreach plan, and the City is to compare the proposed SCE schedules with City's CIP schedule to minimize construction conflicts and impacts to residents.
Aside from City's continuous request for SCE to make infrastructure repairs to improve reliability, the City also requested for improved SCE communication protocols. On this end, SCE has made some improvements in SCE-City staff communication. SCE now sends a single email to the City, which is then automatically routed to key City Management Staff. We have found that there is sometimes a lag from the time an outage actually occurs to the time the notification goes. SCE is working on closing the gap. Also, the City has requested SCE to provide a map showing the affected areas as part of the notification. SCE has also agreed to look into it.
SCE is also working on improving communication with residents and businesses. They have made contact with key Downtown personnel to avoid planned outages during critical times of operation and are also looking for ways to provide better advanced notifications.
CONCLUSION:
Based on the hard work from many individuals, including Councilmember Lesser, City staff is cautiously optimistic that SCE is on the right track to improving power reliability. City staff will continue working with SCE to minimize construction impacts and assure our residents, businesses, and City officials are always fully informed.
Attachments:
1. Circuit Reliability Report for Manhattan Beach, March 2014
2. SCE Capital Improvement Plan Map
3. El Porto Substation Removal Plan