Opinion: Understanding Xcel Energy's First Public-Safety Power Shutoff in Colorado

, including California, Hawaii, Oregon and Minnesota. When wind speeds are high and humidity is low, electrical infrastructure such as aboveground power lines can blow into vegetation or spark against other components, starting a fire that high winds then spread.

Because the grid can’t store electricity, de-energizing and re-energizing have to happen in stages to ensure that changes in the demand side of the power grid are not too rapid for the supply side to adapt to. Power plants can’t turn on instantaneously:, depending on their age, design and the type of fuel they use. And they generally can’t raise their output from 10 percent of their generating capacity to 90 percent with the flick of a switch.

And a utility may cut power because of a risk somewhere in its network that customers can’t see. It’s not always possible for utilities to fine-tune areas where power shutoffs happen.as a way to mitigate the potential impacts of utility equipment-induced wildfires, and it has issued regulations guiding when utilities can de-energize power lines. The regulations require power companies to notify customers in advance and submit detailed reports within ten days after each planned blackout.

Utilities, however, don’t always have abundant sensors in low-voltage distribution grids – the portion of the system that brings power into neighborhoods – and may lack extremely granular control over individual components. In fact, unplanned outages often must be. But depending on the location, this strategy can easily cost up to a million dollars per mile for low-voltage distribution grids andfor high-voltage transmission lines.

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