Pacific Power changes settings during periods of ‘elevated’ fire risk; impacts can spill over to Ashland customers

By Steve Mitchell, Ashland.news

Over the period of about a month earlier this summer, nearly 1,500 people living on the south end of Ashland lost power three times because of wildfire safety settings aimed at preventing fires on equipment owned by Pacific Power.

Thomas McBartlett, director of the city’s Electric Department, said in July that the longest outage lasted about six hours; the others lasted about an hour.

The city of Ashland Electric Department services customers within city limits, delivering power primarily purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration and delivered to Ashland over Pacific Power transmission lines. The outages affecting some city of Ashland customers were due to shut-offs on Pacific Power equipment so, even though it was their customers affected, the city department was not able to work on the cause of the outage.

Simon Gutierrez, a public information representative with Pacific Power, said the utility company implements its enhanced safety settings in areas where the company’s meteorologists have deemed an area as being in a period of “elevated fire risk,” arising when there is a combination of dry fuels and other conditions that the meteorologists are monitoring.

Light contact can turn power off

When the enhanced safety settings are in play, Gutierrez said, the aim is to prevent sparks from igniting a fire. He said the settings are so sensitive that a branch, a bird, or even debris coming into contact with a power line can prompt an outage in “fractions of a second.”

According to Pacific Power’s website (pacificpower.net), the safety settings are an extra precaution the utility company takes to prevent wildfires. The Pacific Power website notes that crews must patrol an area where the settings have prompted an outage before power is restored.

City of Ashland employees are not allowed to restore power to equipment or power lines controlled by Pacific Power, McBartlett said. He said Pacific Power ground crews must get authorization to restore power to an area when the safety settings are tripped.

Gutierrez said those customers in an area the utility company has identified as being in danger of wildfire receive an email notification of the likelihood of an outage.

McBartlett said the Pacific Power’s fire settings are affecting people only on the south end of Ashland. Ashland Electric, the city-owned utility provider, has more than 10,000 customers on its grid.

Potential workaround

Gutierrez said Pacific Power is exploring installing electrical equipment that would allow Ashland more control when Pacific Power’s fire settings shut down entire power lines.

He declined to offer specifics of when Pacific Power might decide whether it would move forward on purchasing or installing the equipment.

McBartlett said such equipment would be purchased solely by Pacific Power and that the city would not have bear any of the cost.

“We have been working with Pacific Power at all levels to try and reduce outages for both utilities,” McBartlett said. “When there is an outage we have open lines of communication with them to work together on restoration.”

Ashland’s grid

McBartlett said Ashland’s grid is in “good shape.” He said the system is reliable.

“We have a really good history and high reliability,” he said. Of the recent outages in south Ashland, he said, “This is kind of a one-off, odd situation for us.”

Email Ashland.news associate editor Steve Mitchell at [email protected].