Planning for a Resilient Energy Grid

Southern California Edison (SCE) is strongly urging our city and others in its service area to collaborate on the goal of mitigating the current impact of climate change, as well as creating resilience in the face of forecasted future consequences. With Edison’s focus on decarbonizing the grid and electrifying transportation and buildings, its position is that a reliable and resilient electric grid becomes even more critical over time, along with the need to incorporate the impacts of climate change into electric system planning.

Edison just released its new white paper Adapting for Tomorrow: Powering a Resilient Future, which outlines the planning, investment, and partnerships needed now to ensure a resilient clean energy future. The white paper underscores the need for government at all levels to work together to ensure a clean energy future that can be affordable and equitable for all.

SCE recently filed a Climate Adaptation Vulnerability Assessment (CAVA) with the California Public Utilities Commission — the first by a California investor-owned utility – which evaluated climate impacts to utility assets, operations, and services. Through global climate model projections, the CAVA studied exposure, vulnerabilities, and adaptations from hazards including temperature, precipitation, flood, drought, wildfire, and sea level rise. With its 50,000-square-mile service area in mind, SCE drew some significant conclusions about inaction. The chief conclusions are that, by 2050, wildfires could take out full corridors of transmission, leaving large swaths of customers without service for long periods; critical substations in flood plains could become inundated due to more extreme precipitation events; and the grid could have up to 20% reduced capacity in some areas due to increased extreme temperatures.

To meet this new reality, SCE asserts that infrastructure must be designed to withstand more intense storm surges and flooding, and new transmission lines must be constructed to bolster regional reliability under more severe wildfire conditions. While advocating for near-term climate adaptation investments, SCE also makes the case that timelines for future focused planning and investment should extend to at least a 20-year horizon.

SCE’s white paper and fact sheet are available https://www.edison.com.