BPA matures its Public Safety Power Shutoff Plan

Over the past few years, the Northwest has seen an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires. In 2020, BPA released its first Wildfire Mitigation Plan to guide the agency's operations throughout wildfire season. A year later, BPA updated its WMP – adding Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) procedures to mitigate potential wildfire risks to and from its facilities. Since then, BPA has worked to evaluate, improve and expand its PSPS procedures to maintain safety and system reliability during wildfire season.

BPA defines wildfire season from May to October. However, the timeframe can vary each year and is dependent on weather and meteorological conditions. During extreme wildfire conditions, BPA may activate its PSPS procedure and proactively de-energize any transmission assets that are at risk. BPA will activate its PSPS team if certain extreme weather conditions are met. These include wind gusts that meet or exceed 60 miles per hour and National Weather Service Red Flag Conditions.

To make certain PSPS decisions, BPA uses various external and internal data including vegetation types, urban and asset density, ignition probability and line/load criticality. Since 2022, BPA has worked with the Pacific Northwest National Lab to create wildfire risk models.

BPA typically updates its PSPS and WMP plans at the same time. However, the PSPS team is updating its plan for 2025, implementing lessons learned, utilizing new tools and maturing internal and external PSPS communications.

“We're taking a more comprehensive approach," Civil Engineer Kelly Miller said. “We're looking at asset health conditions and weather conditions in real time to the best of our ability."

Communication is vital before, during and after a PSPS event, and is one of the key aspects Miller said the team is looking to mature. Communications during a PSPS event include emergency notifications within BPA and communications with customers and stakeholders. This year's PSPS plan includes more structured guidelines – identifying what communication is occurring throughout a PSPS event. “When are we sending out emergency notifications?" Miller said. “How are we letting people know we're re-energized?"

Outside of the wildfire season, BPA actively monitors the health of its transmission assets to identify potential wildfire risks to and from its facilities. Through the utilization of new geospatial tools, Miller said the team can more accurately identify BPA transmission assets with health concerns.

At-risk assets are grouped based on certain risk factors once identified, including condition criticality, wood pole replacements, conductor clearance impairments and vegetation. Additionally, the PSPS team's tools have the capability to display weather data from BPA's Weather and Streamflow Forecasting (PGPW) team. “We've been able to factor this data into our decision making," Miller said. “Having forecasted weather geospatially overlaid with asset and vegetation information has been a huge improvement."

The updates are used during the PSPS team's routine tabletop exercises, where the team simulates a PSPS scenario. With help from PGPW, Miller said tabletop exercises can simulate scenarios with a variety of different weather events. The speed at which an asset is de-energized is heavily dependent on current weather conditions. “We have seen weather materialize very quickly resulting in same day de-energizations," she said. “Other times we are actively monitoring weather that's a couple days out."

These exercises allow the PSPS team to test updated procedures through a variety of potential PSPS scenarios. “There's always room for improvement," Miller said. “We already made a few edits to our tools for 2025 and will continue to update throughout the year as necessary." Moving forward, Miller anticipates that the PSPS plan will be updated alongside the WMP in 2026 – allowing the team to implement lessons learned from this year. words to describe what this means might be helpful.