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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 2608-66631.Approval of the Minutes of the Utilities Advisory Commission Meeting Held on August 5, 2026 Utilities Advisory Commission Staff Report Report Type: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 6:20PM - 6:25PM Lead Department: Utilities Meeting Date: September 2, 2026 Report #:2608-6663 TITLE Approval of the Minutes of the Utilities Advisory Commission Meeting Held on August 5, 2026 RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Utility Advisory Commission review and approve the August 5, 2026 minutes. Commissioner ______ moved to approve the draft minutes of the August 5, 2026 meeting as submitted/amended. Commissioner ____ seconded the motion. ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: August 5, 2026 Draft Minutes APPROVED BY: Alan Kurotori, Director Utilities Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 1 of 16 UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES OF AUGUST 5, 2026, REGULAR MEETING CALL TO ORDER Chair Mauter called the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Present: Chair Mauter, Vice Chair Phillips, Commissioners Croft, Metz, Tucher, and Gupta Absent: Commissioner Scharff AGENDA REVIEW AND REVISIONS Utilities Director Alan Kurotori said the updated 12-month calendar was left in front of the Commission, emailed to UAC members, and made available to the public in attendance and on the website. IN-PERSON PUBLIC COMMENT None. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES ITEM 1: ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Utilities Advisory Commission Meeting Held on June 3, 2026 Commissioner Tucher asked about the status of the work plan drafted in redline in the minutes, which will be presented to Council as soon as August 10. Chair Mauter replied that the Director’s Report will indicate when the work plan goes to Council. MOTION: Vice Chair Phillips moved, seconded by Commissioner Metz, to approve the June 3, 2026 meeting minutes. MOTION PASSED: 5-0-1, Gupta abstain Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 2 of 16 UTILITIES DIRECTOR REPORT Utilities Director Alan Kurotori shared positive news about the passage of AB 34, sponsored by Senator Becker and Assemblymembers Patterson and Berman, and signed by the governor. Staff estimated that this legislation could have a $25M impact on the Utility between 2030 and 2045. Director Kurotori provided an update on the fiber-to-the-premises service. The fiber hut was completed earlier this year and will enable service for up to 850 customers in the area. Staff is currently working with about a dozen early adopters to refine the installation process, gather feedback on their experiences, and address any startup issues. Staff will present a full update to the UAC in October. Gas Main Replacement Program #25 has made significant progress. Crews have installed nearly 10,000 linear feet and approximately 220 gas services in our primary residential area. A $16.5M federal grant funded the project. This reinvestment in our infrastructure also helps reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, as leaks from our gas mains account for roughly 3 percent of the emissions generated by our gas utility. The contractor for the foothill wildfire mitigation project has installed a substantial amount of conduit and cable, with completion expected by the end of the calendar year. Due to the heat and increased fire risk, crews are not actively working unless the work is critical or there is a high business need. As a result, some crews are focusing their efforts outside the foothills and high-fire-threat areas. Director Kurotori provided an update on the Arastradero Creek rehabilitation and pipeline relocation project. A winter storm in 2023 exposed some of our utilities. Principal Engineer Aaron Perkins presented the proposed restoration activities to the Parks and Recreation Commission. The plan aims to relocate pipelines away from areas that are prone to erosion whenever possible. This project also involved gathering information and feedback from the community and regulatory agencies. Director Kurotori acknowledged the light agenda for today's meeting. Staff had a conversation with the chair and vice chair about moving items forward; however, this was not possible because some staff were out this month. Staff had about 60 potential projects, the majority battery-only, that they had been working on with the Northern California Power Agency and other agencies. Staff had expected to negotiate 3 or more power purchase agreements to present to the UAC tonight. Unfortunately, negotiations between the cities and the developers did not progress. Once staff receives further details on the next set of competitive projects for solar and storage options, they will present that information to the UAC, though it is not yet scheduled. Staff anticipates presenting the UAC work plan at the City Council meeting on October 5, as indicated in the 12-month rolling calendar. The calendar incorporates items from the Commission’s recently adopted work plan. Director Kurotori requested the Commission’s Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 3 of 16 feedback on how staff is managing the UAC’s schedule and the number of agenda items to ensure the UAC is not overwhelmed in any given month. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 4 of 16 Commissioner Croft believed the Commission could ask staff about a meeting they attended, especially because the joint session's date was unknown and the information could be outdated by the time it was calendared. This body had shown a keen interest in water-related issues, and Commissioner Croft was curious about any information staff could provide to the UAC. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 5 of 16 NEW BUSINESS ACTION: Calendar Year 2025 Reliability Metric Update and Annual System Reliability Goal Setting; CEQA Status; Not a Project, CEQA Guidelines Section 15378(b)(5) Utilities Chief Operating Officer Terry Crowley delivered a slide presentation. On March 2, 2026, staff presented electric system reliability metrics to the Council and proposed reliability goals. The Council agreed with staff’s recommended goals but wanted goals tied to Palo Alto’s past performance to address electrification concerns. Tonight, staff sought the UAC’s input on the proposed reliability goals before presenting them to the Council for adoption. COO Crowley displayed the primary reliability metrics for 2019 through 2025: SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index), SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index), and CAIDI (Customer Average Interruption Duration Index). Major Event Days (MED) were defined as days when 10 percent or more of Palo Alto’s customers were affected by an outage. In 2023, the City implemented new software that improved accuracy, so numbers before 2023 may have been understated. Chair Mauter asked whether MED could be exogenous to the system, such as an earthquake or major weather event, rather than a major system outage caused by poor transformer maintenance, and whether there was a clearer version of MED. COO Crowley responded that there were 2 widely accepted industry definitions of an MED: The legacy version was 10 percent of customers affected in a 24-hour period. The newer, more statistically valid version is the 2.5-beta method, which takes the standard deviation of average daily outage minutes, multiplies it by 2.5, and then applies additional calculations to produce a range. A day that exceeds that range is an MED. Neither version considers the outage cause. Weather events, earthquakes, major equipment failures, or other factors could create an MED. Outages on certain circuits in Palo Alto create an MED. Staff will continue to triage large outages regardless of the cause. If it was the UAC’s recommendation, staff could include criteria tied to equipment failures, weather events, or multiple outages. COO Crowley presented regional and national reliability metrics for 2024 because 2025 data were not available when staff prepared the report. PG&E’s DeAnza District and Palo Alto had similar weather, climate, and population density. Benchmarking against PG&E helped assess the value the City of Palo Alto provides compared with the most likely provider if Palo Alto chose not to have an electric utility. Palo Alto also compared well with Alameda and Silicon Valley Power. Palo Alto ranked in the top quartile among all utilities nationwide. Staff’s proposed reliability goals were: Outperform PG&E’s DeAnza District on all reliability metrics, including and excluding MED. Remain within the top quartile nationally for SAIDI and SAIFI when MED is excluded. Set a target for average system reliability equal to or better than 4 nines (99.99 percent available), equivalent to a SAIDI of 52.6 or less. Set an operational target to lower CAIDI to below 190 to speed restoration times following an outage. The reason for excluding national MED was that California weather differs from other parts of the country, so comparing MED that includes storms was not a fair comparison. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 6 of 16 Commissioner Gupta asked about staff’s recommended goal of lowering CAIDI below 190, rather than a 10 percent 3-year average. COO Crowley replied that the goal was to lower CAIDI but staff could consider using a 3-year average as an additional goal. Commissioner Metz wanted to confirm whether the 52.6 and 190 referred to minutes, as that clarification would be helpful throughout the presentation. COO Crowley confirmed that the SAIDI and CAIDI numbers were minutes. SAIFI is the number of outages per year. COO Crowley presented graphs of the proposed targets for average system availability and reliability, as well as for historical performance against SAIDI, ASAI, and CAIDI targets. COO Crowley believed that 4 nines, or 52.56 for SAIDI, was not out of reach relative to historical numbers. The CAIDI target of 190 was sometimes not met, so staff needed to continue driving those numbers downward to meet that goal. COO Crowley sought recommendations from the Commission on the 4 goals staff proposed. Those recommendations would then be taken to Council for final approval, after which staff would begin work on projects to meet those goals. Vice Chair Phillips emphasized the need for metrics that clearly show whether we are doing better or worse than in previous years, a sentiment he heard from several City Council members. No significant changes appeared over the period shown on the slide, prompting Vice Chair Phillips to ask whether this reflected no improvements or external factors. Given the City's $375M investment in grid modernization to improve reliability, Vice Chair Phillips asked how that would show up in the metrics. Vice Chair Phillips asked how these metrics would help staff improve, how many outages were unavoidable, whether there were many storms and we did well, or whether there were few storms and our performance was still poor. Vice Chair Phillips believed the system should be better equipped to handle major events and suggested that MED not be excluded. Vice Chair Phillips thought that industry-standard metrics did not adequately serve our needs, especially as we aim to justify the expense of grid modernization. Vice Chair Phillips wanted something creative to provide a clearer understanding, perhaps by setting different targets or using other metrics. Vice Chair Phillips was not satisfied with the proposed metrics. Commissioner Tucher agreed with Vice Chair Phillips that the SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI metrics were unhelpful. COO Crowley loved SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI, and he provided the following explanation. In 2023, the difference between including and excluding MED was substantial, 154.1 and 43.5, respectively, indicating storms and a lot of restoration work that caused many customer outage minutes. For normal operations, 43.5 was a good number. PG&E was in the 200s, the nationwide quartile was in the 80s, and the numbers for Alameda and Santa Clara were higher than Palo Alto’s. When MED is included, you assess storm response and decide how to reduce the number. A utility weighs the value of the service against the cost. One internal discussion is whether to rebuild the system to better manage winter storms and have staff available 24 Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 7 of 16 hours a day during storms or winter. The 2024 numbers were similar. In 2025, there were not many winter storms, so not many MED or outage minutes were excluded; however, when reviewing outage details, staff found that some large circuits serve more than 10 percent of the City’s customers. An equipment failure on that circuit automatically triggers an MED, so staff would have to consider whether we want to prepare for and manage this. Excluding MED allows separate analysis of large outages. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 8 of 16 Chair Mauter thought it would be useful to have MED subsets to differentiate between weather events and equipment failures. We want fast response times during bad weather, so including everything is valuable. It will be easier to demonstrate the value of isolating sections of the grid, improving robustness, and investing in tree trimming if we pull those out. Benchmarking local agencies on recovery time is valuable because we experience the same weather events. Chair Mauter felt it was somewhat futile to set steady averages because the numbers have been volatile over the years, making it harder to track progress. Chair Mauter assumed the variance was weather-related. We can promote grid modernization as something that will improve reliability but then we get a bunch of bad storms. Chair Mauter supported the 4 nines target. Chair Mauter appreciated setting a metric of 190 minutes, which was valuable for customers considering investing in a backup battery, helping them decide the size of the backup battery and how long they were comfortable going without power. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 9 of 16 margin. Palo Alto outperformed De Anza on all metrics including and excluding MED for SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI, except for CAIDI excluding MED. Palo Alto is in the top quartile of SAIDI and SAIFI excluding MED. Palo Alto met the proposed 4-nines metric last year by a good margin, and we failed it only 1 year, so Commissioner Gupta did not know if that was the best metric to show improvement. Commissioner Gupta recommended identifying the 10 worst-performing circuits. Commissioner Gupta suggested looking at the percentage of outages we restored within 4 or 8 hours to evaluate our restoration efforts. We cannot promise customers they will not experience an outage during a severe storm but promising that they will have their power back within a couple of hours most of the time can be a helpful selling point in electrification. Commissioner Gupta will email staff if he has any further creative ideas. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 10 of 16 quickly restore power to customers from another source during an outage. The industry has tried to reduce outage frequency as much as possible but a 5- or 10-second outage is not a reliability tool. Utilities are trying to sectionalize outages to fewer customers and then restore service quickly. Customers want fewer and shorter outages. Customers want information about the outage, the restoration process, and when the crew will arrive. The City uses the OMS system to communicate with customers. COO Crowley said it would take years of hard work to reach a higher goal of 4.5 nines, which corresponds to a SAIDI of about 26 minutes, but that goal was not unobtainable in most years. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 11 of 16 Commissioner Croft mentioned that she has a heat pump water heater and, given the large tank, thought it would take a long outage before she ran out of hot water. Car charging was a major concern, so she suggested having a backup system to use during an outage. Commissioner Croft recalled a previous discussion about a municipal charging station. If customers could receive a notification on their phones and reserve a charging spot, it would reduce concerns for those considering electrification. Vice Chair Phillips asked what staff’s next step was on this item. COO Crowley replied that it was up to the Commission whether staff should return or that he could coalesce the commissioners’ comments and then return to Council to seek their input and final approval. The Commission already expressed their opinions, so Chair Mauter recommended that staff coalesce these comments and return to Council to seek their input and final approval. Commissioner Tucher did not know whether the data showed we were getting better or worse, nor did he understand what was happening behind the numbers. Answers to the questions he raised in his public letter would give him more confidence that our outages are improving and help us reassure customers about electrification. Commissioner Tucher posed the following questions. Why is CAIDI so high at 245? Are a small number of big outages skewing the average, since SAIFI is low, or does excluding MED remove the easy cases and leave only the hard ones? What specifically is an MED (weather and equipment or other causes)? How many MED were there? What percentage of total outages were MED? Where are the hot spots? Where were the outages last year, and what were the causes and durations? Standard industry metrics do not answer those questions but Commissioner Tucher thought a metrics outage report ought to. What is an outage, and can an outage be as short as 30 seconds? Commissioner Tucher would welcome reevaluating whether solar and battery storage pencil out, especially for commercial. COO Crowley explained that Palo Alto’s CAIDI is typically high because outages are related to equipment failures or other issues that require a crew to repair, such as transformer or underground splice failures. It takes time to call out the initial troubleshooter, have them conduct an initial investigation, identify the issue, isolate it, and restore customers. In the meantime, we call in a crew of 3 to 5 people, and it takes time for them to arrive. We have more outages and more customers affected in an MED but restoration time is quicker because staff do not have travel time. Staff can calculate the outage minutes associated with MED. The Maybell and Colorado circuits were involved in the majority of outages from October 2023 to July 2026. Because they are large circuits, an outage affects more customers and generates more outage minutes. Fault indicators can find and isolate the outage. As we do grid modernization, staff is looking at adding sectionalizing devices, which is a fuse or interrupter to break up the circuit into smaller pieces, so fewer customers are affected by a disruption. COO Crowley said staff needed direction on these metrics or whether the UAC wanted to see additional metrics, such as how many customers we restore within 4 hours or other goals. As Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 12 of 16 next steps, staff will review those metrics, investigate outage details, and identify the lowest- cost solutions or projects to reduce those numbers and meet the goals. NO ACTION TAKEN FUTURE TOPICS FOR UPCOMING MEETINGS Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 13 of 16 commission, how we advocate and provide our advice, what our role is, and better ways to work together. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 14 of 16 Commissioner Tucher submitted his suggestions for the work plan. The current draft contained inconsistencies, errors, and redundancies. The UAC work plan did not include financial reviews of each utility. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 15 of 16 the work plan could be spread across the June and July meetings. Commissioner Croft thought a questionnaire should be sent in advance to help commissioners identify their top topics, as she found it helpful this year. Chair Mauter agreed with Commissioner Croft. Director Kurotori said work plans are fiscal and typically developed after commissioners are appointed. Chair Mauter stated that the UAC put significant time, thought, and effort into formulating the 12-month work plan in June, so the current UAC needed to follow through on it. Chair Mauter suggested the Commission discuss it with City Manager Shikada next month during Commission Norms. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS AND REPORTS FROM MEETINGS/EVENTS VIRTUAL PUBLIC COMMENT Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 16 of 16 1. Alex M. presented slides as the spokesperson for a group of 5 people. His company developed an easy-to-use platform that combined structures, live fuel moisture, terrain, and weather into a single, simple view of the wildland-urban interface, refreshed every 3 to 5 days, that firefighters can use on their iPad. Alex M. proposed a 90-day memorandum of agreement with the City of Palo Alto to allow firefighters, utilities, City planners, and community stakeholders to experience its operational value. Current fire models have technological limitations because they rely on input from a 1980 satellite launched by USGS that uses a 30-meter pixel grid. Alex M. built a platform on top of GIS. A slide showed 1-meter-per-pixel Sentinel-2 imagery from the European Space Agency, which can show vegetation health and growth over time; identify homes with the highest risk based on terrain, slope, live fuel moisture, and vegetation type; and show where flame lengths exceed 12 feet. This information helps agencies prioritize inspections, identify high-risk areas, and note areas with utility lines and other factors that could cause widespread urban conflagration. Gaussian Splats, a newer 3D rendering, was implemented to run a physics-based fire model in collaboration with some of the larger Bay Area technology companies. It can model how fire and embers may move under dry offshore winds interacting with the foothill terrain. Alex M. offered the possibility of applying for grant funding for the City of Palo Alto. 2. Peter Drekmeier with Yosemite Rivers Alliance raised his hand for Item 2, lowered it when he began to speak, and then heard staff say there were no speakers. He was very impressed with the staff presentation and believed the Commission asked good questions and made good points, resulting in a better product going to City Council. Yosemite Rivers Alliance had been trying to get a study session for a long time but they were not invited to participate in the water study session. Peter Drekmeier did not have much confidence in staff. At the Council meeting on the Urban Water Management Plan, he commented that staff was more aligned with BAWSCA than with Palo Alto. The City has endorsed the Bay Delta Plan but staff has been very oppositional. He has started to reach out to some Council Members to share his concerns. He asked Director Kurotori to reach out to him to ask what he wanted this study session to look like, how we could work together, and how we could make it the study session Council is expecting. BAWSCA and SFPUC did not want to engage in dialogue with Yosemite Rivers Alliance because it embarrassed them. Peter Drekmeier was happy to work with staff but they had to earn his trust. ADJOURNMENT Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:28 p.m.