Cybersecurity, Reliability & CIP

“We put effort into the bills, making sure all concerns the legislators had were addressed. We didn’t cross the finish line. We’re looking at what we can do without legislation, what’s under our power. We can ask the utilities to develop a wildfire protection plan.”

“Through EEI and the CEO task force, we’re talking to Congress and the Department of Energy and asking for options that don’t require us to serve as insurers of last resort for all damage associated with wildfire. Now, we are the insurers of a last resort and that’s untenable.”

Conversations with Puget Sound Energy CEO Mary Kipp, Hawaii Public Utilities Commission Chair Leo Asuncion, Pacific Power President Ryan Flynn, Rocky Mountain Power President Dick Garlish, with paintings by PUF’s Paul Kjellander.

“What we do have are lessons learned to share with our peers who have wildfire risk in their service territory, or who will have it in the next five to ten years, as our environment continues to change and forces us to adapt to the conditions.”

“We must have liability caps. It may seem unachievable to change state and/or federal laws, but utilities’ exposure to these liabilities must be capped. Customers are being impacted by legal costs associated with wildfires. Unless reasonable limits are placed on wildfire liabilities, access to capital will be hampered.”

Utilities now have public safety power shutoffs and design systems with sensors, so if fire meets the line, it automatically de-energizes as fast as one-tenth of a second. Expect that arsenal to grow, even with improvements in vegetation management and undergrounding of lines.

Recent advisories confirm that nation-state threat actors are actively seeking to compromise critical infrastructure sectors, especially the electric grid.

For more than a decade, EPRI has been studying AI and its potential impacts on the energy sector, and in the last six years, the Institute has accelerated its activities around AI and data science. To date, EPRI has been involved in more than 75 projects related to AI applications in the energy sector.

“We bring in processes and techniques that let us go through an area of concern, evaluate pole by pole, and make a determination of what is the likelihood of that pole being compromised by this storm or not targeting the invest.”

“I’m pulling every lever we have to make sure we meet the reliability needs and coordinate the gas and electric side. What’s clear to me is we need somebody, it doesn’t have to be me, FERC, or NERC. We need somebody to step into that gap and make sure they’re focused on the job of protecting our gas reliability.”