Driven by an arid La Niña winter, Western utilities are increasingly using public safety power shutoffs to prevent wildfires. (Bloomberg)
Control center operations have gone from simple load balancing to high-stakes "man-machine" decision-making: Meteorologists use AI models to make the tough call between infuriating customers or risking a fire.
Case in point: PG&E was fined $100M+ for the chaos caused by a 2019 shutoff impacting ~1M customers. Yet post-event inspections revealed 550 instances of wind damage that could have ignited fires had the lines remained energized.