A Review of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) for Wildfire Mitigation: Policies, Practices, Models and Data Sources

Abstract

Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), also known as proactive de-energizations, proactively de-energize a portion of power systems to mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires caused by electric infrastructure. Since the first practice in Southern California in 2012, PSPS have been widely discussed in government and industry, but seldom in the academic literature. This article surveys the PSPS program in California, including its history, policies, and practices. In practice, PSPS present strong interactions between electric utilities and customers, yielding PSPS a trade-off problem to balance the risk of power-line-ignited wild-fires (i.e., wildfire risk) against the harms of power shutoff (i.e., PSPS risk). In this regard, this article summarizes the industry-standard and research methods for PSPS studies, including models, data sources, and test systems. It is suggested to integrate engineering solutions with social-economic science, such as energy innovation, energy equity, and PSPS uncertainties, in future PSPS studies.