As the severity and frequency of wildfires in California increase, the state’s utilities, including Southern California Edison, have implemented Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) outages to reduce the risk of electrical infrastructure igniting a wildfire. PSPS outages are a tool of last resort.

PSPS outages are authorized and regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). To reduce the community and safety impacts of a PSPS, the CPUC has identified critical facilities and critical infrastructure as entities "that are essential to the public safety and that require additional assistance and advance planning to ensure resiliency during de-energization events."

 

Public Safety Partner Portal

Entities designated as critical facilities and critical infrastructure receive priority notice of PSPS outages and may benefit from access to SCE’s secure Public Safety Partner Portal, which includes updated PSPS information.

We will work with critical facilities and critical infrastructure entities to help assess their resiliency and access to backup power. Businesses eligible for critical facilities and critical infrastructure designation may request access to the SCE Public Safety Partner Portal.

Visit the Public Safety Partner Portal

 

Industry Sectors

Entities in the following industry sectors are considered “critical facilities and infrastructure” by the CPUC.

Emergency Services

Emergency dispatch centers, police stations, fire stations, emergency operations centers, tribal government emergency services providers.

Government Facilities

Schools, government agencies essential to national defense, jails and prisons, homeless shelters, community centers, senior centers, independent living centers (as defined by the California Department of Rehabilitation), voting centers and vote tabulation facilities.

Healthcare and Public Health

Public health departments, cooling (or warming) centers, temporary facilities established for public health emergencies, medical facilities, including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, nursing homes, blood banks, healthcare facilities, dialysis centers, and hospice facilities, excluding doctor offices and other nonessential medical facilities.

Energy

Public and private facilities vital to maintaining or restoring normal service, including but not limited to interconnected, publicly owned utilities and electric cooperatives.

Water and Wastewater Systems

Facilities associated with the provision of drinking water or processing of wastewater, including facilities used to pump, divert, transport store, treat, and deliver water or wastewater.

Communications

Communication carrier infrastructure, including selective routers, central offices, headends, cellular switches, remote terminals, and cellular sites.

Chemical

Facilities associated with the provision, manufacture, maintenance, or distribution of hazardous materials and chemicals, including Category N customers as defined in CPUC Decision D.01-06-085.

Transportation

Includes facilities associated with automobile, rail, aviation, major public transportation, and maritime transportation for civilian and military purposes, and traffic management systems.

Food and Agriculture

Emergency Feeding Organizations, as defined in 7 U.S.C. § 7501, and food banks.

 

Updating Contact Information and Resiliency Planning

Log in to the Preference Center in MyAccount to update your outage contact information to ensure you are notified about any potential PSPS outages and can properly prepare your business. At a minimum, please provide SCE with two people to contact at your business – primary and secondary points of contact. In addition, please include multiple contact methods (e.g., email, phone, text, etc.).

To ensure the continuity of your operations during emergencies and other outages, please consider adding back-up generation capacity to your plan.

We encourage you to review and update your business resiliency plan, and ask you to share with us information about your planning in preparation for PSPS or other emergencies, as well as your backup power needs.

Backup Generation Assessment 

As you prepare for a PSPS event, you may request a back-up generation assessment. Completing the assessment will provide SCE with information needed to work with your business on power needs in the event of an emergency. Please complete the form at the link below and an SCE employee or Account Manager will contact you.

Contact Us

To add your business to our designated roster of critical facilities and critical infrastructure, or if you have other questions, please contact your account manager, or send an inquiry to:

Maria Rios
Senior Advisor, Customer Service
SCECSCustomerSupport@sce.com

 

Resources

Other Outage Tips & Checklists