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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-08-05 Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes 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. Commissioner Tucher noted that tonight’s agenda had 1 topic and that the UAC took the previous month off. The month before that, the agenda focused on 1 topic, the UAC work plan. This resulted in 3 consecutive months with minimal activity to report to the Council. Commissioner Tucher did not understand why agenda items could not be moved up, since not all staff members were on vacation during those 3 months. Director Kurotori explained that the reserve management policy is a significant item to present to the UAC at the September meeting but it is not yet complete for discussion tonight. The staff expected today’s agenda to include a detailed presentation and discussion of 1 or 2 power purchase agreements. The UAC work plan represents a significant effort by this body to set the UAC’s objectives for the year. Commissioner Tucher noted that the UAC had a 3-3 vote on the Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP), which was subsequently approved at a recent Council meeting. Commissioner Tucher stated that 4 or 5 Council Members provided feedback on next steps, including holding a study session. Chair Mauter saw the topic on the 12-month rolling calendar, so the Commission can discuss it when it comes forward. Director Kurotori confirmed that Council’s action included direction to staff, which was in the 12-month calendar, and that it was more appropriate to discuss it then. Commissioner Tucher offered suggestions to make the director's report more comprehensive and informative, including updates on unresolved topics from last month and highlighting what the Council has addressed since the UAC last met. Chair Mauter said that the content of the director’s report is ultimately at the director's discretion but she would greatly appreciate it if the report could continue the practice of including a PowerPoint slide for any topics carried over from the previous meeting. Commissioner Tucher expressed interest in hearing staff's impressions of the June BAWSCA meeting, at which the City’s representative, Vice Mayor Stone, spoke. Commissioner Tucher believed this would be an important update to include in the director's report. Staff attended BAWSCA meetings, which were livestreamed and available to the public. Director Kurotori mentioned that he could not provide a summary of all the events he may or may not attend. Director Kurotori preferred not to discuss an item scheduled for a future joint session that was listed on the calendar. Chair Mauter noted that it was on the calendar under Items to be Scheduled as a joint session with the City Council and BAWSCA regarding the water demand forecast, Item 13. 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. Director Kurotori reported that several BAWSCA representatives spoke at the meeting and there was an in-depth discussion of the 7-year drought plan. If the Commission is interested in adding it to the agenda, Director Kurotori could provide a meeting summary and additional information; however, the City Council will also hold a joint study session on this topic. Some of the information BAWSCA shared was timely and will inform the joint session. Director Kurotori did not have the PowerPoint presentation with him to share with the UAC. Community members from Palo Alto attended the BAWSCA meeting because of their strong interest in this topic. Staff will prepare the agenda for the joint session based on the Council’s direction. Chair Mauter informed the Commission that it is appropriate to ask content-related questions about the director’s activities during the director's report. Council's actions will be addressed in the upcoming joint session. Chair Mauter clarified that inquiries about the scheduling of an item can be raised during the 12-month rolling calendar discussion. Commissioner Tucher wondered whether the Commission wanted to discuss what could be valuable to include in the director’s report. Commissioner Tucher asked the chair and vice chair for their opinions on staff's request to limit today's agenda to outage metrics. Chair Mauter agreed with Commissioner Tucher that the UAC should have additional agenda items; however, staff indicated they could not add a new agenda item, and the Commission does not direct the Utility's work. Given the various topics anticipated over the next 2 months, Vice Chair Phillips thought it would be great if staff could bring 1 or 2 of them to this meeting but he was assured that was not possible. Commissioner Croft was unaware of the significant BAWSCA meeting and thought it was helpful for Director Kurotori to report that a BAWSCA meeting was held, that many Palo Alto staff members and residents attended, and that there was a request to schedule a joint meeting with the City Council, which will be added to the calendar. At the end of UAC meetings, commissioners share information about events or meetings they have attended. Likewise, Commissioner Croft wanted the director to briefly mention any relevant meetings in the director’s report. If commissioners have specific elements they would like to see in the director’s report, Chair Mauter requested that they communicate them directly to the director before the meeting. This will allow the director sufficient time to prepare a relevant summary. Topics related to the 15 items on the UAC’s work plan and 12-month rolling calendar may help determine whether to include or exclude them in the director’s report. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 5 of 16 NEW BUSINESS ITEM 2: 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. Commissioner Tucher asked how many MED we had last year, what the causes were, whether they affected all of Palo Alto or a specific neighborhood, and whether they affected residential or commercial. If it was commercial, we do not know whether businesses could send employees home to work remotely or whether they were biotech companies with refrigerators. Commissioner Tucher noted that a problem with MED was that you could have 10 percent of your customers experience small outages; however, if 9 percent of your customers have huge outages, those go unnoticed or are excluded. Commissioner Tucher raised questions in a public letter. Commissioner Tucher thought the metrics were too high-level, making them a worthless management tool. COO Crowley replied that there were 4 MED in 2025. Staff sought the UAC’s guidance in setting high-level, systemwide goals. Then, staff can use their experience and industry practice to determine what it will take to meet those goals. For example, reducing MED involves reviewing operations, such as preparation and staffing for winter storms, and preventive maintenance to proactively replace equipment. If MED occurs because large circuits represent more than 10 percent of customers, staff would consider using a sectionalizing device. The Colorado circuit runs into downtown and past the 4 kV Hopkins Substation, which we are planning to rebuild. If the Hopkins Substation were 12 kV, staff could consider breaking up the Colorado circuit, so that an outage would affect only half or a third of those customers. There may be rate impacts. Staff wanted to leverage the funding for grid modernization as much as possible. Staff will propose projects to reduce the numbers to meet the goals and to develop simple phrasing for customers about reliability when thinking about electrification. Chair Mauter thanked COO Crowley for interpreting the graphs. Chair Mauter suggested that the Utility evaluate new projects using a cost-reliability curve to prioritize investments that maintain or enhance the grid's reliability. This would be a useful metric to share with the public and the UAC to better understand the rationale for those investments. Utilities Director Alan Kurotori thanked Chair Mauter for her comment about wanting to understand the value-add. Director Kurotori mentioned that COO Crowley had conducted a deep dive with the engineers on that. Staff looked at MED. Another agency used GIS maps to show outage locations and failure types. You will see some improvements from replacing equipment in the field that may be at the end of its useful life and sectionalizing, so quantifying those values was very helpful. 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. Vice Chair Phillips agreed with separating what we do not control, such as the weather, from what we do control, such as response time and failures due to inadequate maintenance. In 2 or 3 years, the Council can evaluate how the dollars spent on improvements have increased our reliability. Vice Chair Phillips did not think the current metrics could prove that reliability has improved because the numbers sometimes fluctuate depending on whether it was a good weather year. COO Crowley thought the 2.5-beta method was better but we use the 10 percent method because reliability was so good in Palo Alto. A large single outage could be due to the long Colorado feeders or a plane crashing into the transmission. Staff could add a caveat to the 10 percent, noting that it covers multiple outages. Staff can determine whether an outage is truly an MED or something we want to invest in to limit the scope of an outage. Including more MED will increase the numbers but staff could drive more work to try to lower them. Major weather events are the third or fourth tier of what staff would consider when deciding where to spend money. Over the next 3 to 4 years, staff will focus on tree trimming and equipment failures, which should drive the numbers consistently downward. The utility industry’s intent in creating the MED was to identify and exclude those events to achieve a consistent day-to-day average and less year-to-year variance. To smooth out yearly variability, staff can set goals based on a 3- year rolling average to demonstrate whether we are trending downward. The metrics are the utility industry standard. Commissioner Gupta believed Council wanted goals that show residents the City's investments in grid modernization will improve reliability, enabling customers to transition from gas and electrify. Using the table, Commissioner Gupta calculated that 68 percent of outage minutes were MED. Commissioner Gupta believed that distinguishing exogenous from endogenous factors could help us be more precise about MED. We need an answer for customers considering electrification who want gas for cooking and hot showers during an MED. Maybe we can discuss the extra cost to increase reliability. Commissioner Gupta wanted to see a table of electrical and gas outages during an MED, if useful, unless gas did not have an outage because it is mostly undergrounded. Palo Alto met 2 of the current goals by an enormous 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. Commissioner Croft noted a prior presentation included fiscal year SAIDI, perhaps the annual report, whereas the numbers presented today were calendar year, so she asked why staff switched to calendar year and whether they would measure based on calendar year or fiscal year. Commissioner Croft inquired why Palo Alto compared well with the top quartile on SAIDI and SAIFI, yet our CAIDI measurements were higher, and also higher when excluding MED than when including MED. Commissioner Croft asked if staff expected grid modernization to improve CAIDI. Commissioner Croft wanted to see a line graph of outages over the last 15 years to illustrate the long-term trend. Commissioner Croft suggested thinking through outage use cases, such as people with medical equipment or those needing to charge their car, and gathering customer feedback on which numbers mattered most, which could inform goal setting and might make customers more convinced to electrify. Commissioner Croft emphasized the need to clarify commercial customers' needs, for example, improving reliability on a circuit feeding a high-acuity customer and determining whether 4 nines is enough to attract data centers. To convince someone to transition to electric, Commissioner Croft thought there should be a SAIFI goal. According to the City Council meeting minutes on this topic, Council directed staff to return with recommendations for quantified reductions in SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI. Commissioner Croft recommended setting a goal slightly better than 4 nine since we already meet that metric and encouraged setting SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI goals, along with goals including MED, that were a little better than what we were already doing, because Council wanted to see improvement. COO Crowley explained that other utilities track calendar-year metrics. Staff moved to calendar- year metrics to provide a more consistent time period and enable national and regional comparisons. Based on COO Crowley’s experience with a large California utility, larger utilities have many transitory or unknown outages where they test the line and it holds, so they do not need to call out a crew to repair it; thus, outage minutes and restoration time are much shorter. If a branch fell through a line and tripped a fuse, going out to re-fuse it is a very quick restoration. A large percentage of Palo Alto’s outages are equipment failures where we have to find the failure, isolate it, and repair the equipment before we can restore all customers, which drives up outage duration. Grid modernization will build ties between circuits and rebuild the East Meadow and Hopkins Substations to 12 kV systems to shorten some circuits and increase capacity, which would shorten outages or reduce their scope. A near-term option is to break up Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 10 of 16 and isolate the circuits but grid modernization will provide reliability and redundancy so we can 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. Director Kurotori added that we are getting better data on our outages and their locations, enabling staff to take a deeper dive into where we are experiencing repeated outages. Using outage information and GIS to create heat maps could better inform how we reinvest in our infrastructure. Some of the grid modernization projects address capacity, resiliency, and reliability. As we do grid modernization over the years, staff can highlight what a project does for the community, including the value add, increased reliability, and ensuring we have capacity for them to electrify and add more electric vehicles, as well as for the businesses wanting to expand here. COO Crowley explained that you automatically have a SAIFI goal when you have SAIDI and CAIDI goals, so he will determine the SAIFI goal. COO Crowley acknowledged that the Commission broadly indicated they want more aggressive goals, so staff could propose 4.5 nines. COO Crowley could refine the MED. COO Crowley asked whether the Commission wanted staff to share what was being done to reduce outages on the top 10 circuits, the metric for the longest duration outage restoration for the year, and/or the percentage of customers restored within 4 hours. Chair Mauter reiterated her question about considering costs when reviewing projects to set reasonable rate expectations. COO Crowley confirmed that staff could include that. Regarding Council's desire to set goals that would alleviate electrification concerns, Commissioner Metz recommended 3 things. First, set technical goals to ensure that CPAU has the reliability we need. Second, use those technical goals to convince the public to electrify. Identify useful metrics to communicate to ratepayers. Commissioner Metz thought it was easier for customers to understand if you connected the 4 nines to the 52.6 average outage minutes per year. Commissioner Metz believed ignoring MED was not a good idea. Bucketing the reasons for MED would be useful (weather, tree, equipment failure, etc.). We have to track those things to know what problems we want to solve. Technically, it tells us how well we are managing the network but it does not tell us how likely a customer is to lose power. Third, we need customer buy-in for electrification, which is a marketing/communications problem that will likely require customer research and market research, as well as figuring out how to communicate with ratepayers to convince them to go all-electric. It is critical to understand Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 11 of 16 what information would convince the average customer and make them confident they should go electric. Commissioner Metz said the FTTP study included good research and useful details. 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. Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 12 of 16 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 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. Chair Mauter noted there would be opportunities to invest in upgrading our grid and making it more resilient. Chair Mauter requested that staff, when presenting grid modernization updates, rank order those investments and look across a broad portfolio. NO ACTION TAKEN FUTURE TOPICS FOR UPCOMING MEETINGS Utilities Director Alan Kurotori noted the UAC’s goals and objectives for the year were identified on the calendar. Staff ranked them by priority. The first bullet point was a high priority for the UAC or fed into the Finance Committee, S/CAP, or others. The number of priorities on the work plan will change because the Commission requested that staff group them into categories, so staff will adjust the numbers when they bring it to Council for adoption. Staff tentatively added rates and forecasts to the calendar. In June, there will be a recap of Utilities items that had gone to the Council. The Items to be Scheduled list was not all-inclusive but included a 1-year lookback on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) cost-effectiveness, an item of importance requested by the UAC. SFPUC will be invited to the joint study session with City Council and BAWSCA on the water demand forecast. Staff will try to keep a manageable number of items going to the UAC at any one time. Chair Mauter stated that the UAC approved the work plan in the minutes. Staff may make changes to the approved work plan as A, B, or C but not by renumbering, as renumbering makes it difficult for the Commission to review the minutes and effectively track contributions to the work plan. To address all items on the 12-month rolling calendar, Chair Mauter emphasized the need to move through simple topics quickly, address complex topics thoroughly, and set Commission norms for the length of commissioner comments. Chair Mauter will take responsibility for adhering to the times listed on the agenda by using the clock or another method, which the Commission can discuss during Commission Norms, agendized for September. Director Kurotori offered to keep the work plan numbers the same but to group them as A, B, or C when presented to Council. Commissioner Metz asked what the Commission Norms and the 1-year lookback on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) cost effectiveness were. Assistant City Manager Kiely Nose explained that City Manager Ed Shikada will help facilitate a conversation about Commission Norms, a framework provided to the City’s boards and Utilities Advisory Commission Summary Minutes – August 5, 2026 Page 13 of 16 commissions outlining general operating norms, including how we operate effectively as a commission, how we advocate and provide our advice, what our role is, and better ways to work together. Director Kurotori stated that the 1-year lookback on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) cost effectiveness was an item the UAC wanted staff to bring back to assess whether battery storage and other energy resources were cost effective. Commissioner Croft added that the UAC recommended updating electricity prices in the cost-effectiveness study every year to see whether the electricity price update changed whether we were interested in DER, because none of them were cost effective the last time we looked at it. Commissioner Croft noted that grid modernization was listed as a work plan item but did not see it scheduled for the UAC to revisit. Commissioner Croft recalled that the Commission wanted to hear about grid modernization twice a year but requested at least once a year. Commissioner Croft appreciated the most recent granular presentation on grid modernization and would like an update on progress against that plan or what has changed since that presentation. Director Kurotori responded that the UAC saw grid modernization as part of the 5-year capital improvement project plan. Staff could perhaps highlight grid modernization when presenting those projects to the UAC. Utilities Chief Operating Officer Terry Crowley said staff intended to bring grid modernization back with the capital improvement plan at the January 2027 meeting. As we go through this budgeting cycle, staff will forecast the next 5 years and will provide an update on what has been achieved and what was envisioned. The plan was largely intact. Design elements, material lead times, and other things may change slightly. Staff could provide updates on project scoping and progress. COO Crowley agreed to Commissioner Croft’s request that a note be added to the 12-month rolling calendar stating that “5-Year Capital Improvement Project (Include Treatment Plant)” includes grid modernization. Grid modernization is important, and Commissioner Tucher felt it should be included in the director’s report every month. At a minimum, it might be appropriate to provide an update on grid modernization every other month as part of the director’s report. Commissioner Gupta echoed Commissioner Tucher’s comment. The approval of bond financing for grid modernization was scheduled to go to the Finance Committee in November and to Council in December. Commissioner Gupta thought it would be great if that item could come to the UAC at the October meeting, even if it may involve moving some items around, because grid modernization was one of the most significant projects on which the UAC could provide input. 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. Chair Mauter stated that the UAC approved the minutes, which included the 15 work plan points. The work plan was not on the agenda and will not be revisited in today’s meeting. This was a calendaring agenda item, so the discussion focused on how the 12-month rolling calendar addresses the work plan. The work plan reflected a consensus and real-time effort. Staff will group and organize the work plan before presenting it to Council. The UAC will not see the work plan again before it goes to Council. The chair and vice chair will work with staff to ensure as many work plan items as possible appear before the UAC. Commissioner Gupta commended staff for the improved 12-month rolling calendar. There were many important rate issues. The City was making investments. The UAC had many items to address. Some commissions and boards met biweekly. Rather than having long meetings, Commissioner Gupta wondered whether it might be advantageous for the UAC to meet biweekly and finish meetings earlier. Director Kurotori noted that the joint session with City Council will likely occur during a Council meeting, which would be an additional meeting for the UAC. In the past, the UAC had ad hoc subcommittees conduct deeper dives and report back to the full UAC but they are not standing committees under the Brown Act. Chair Mauter stated that the UAC will use subcommittees as appropriate and that this could be discussed during the Commission Norms item when commissioners have the opportunity to ask questions about City rules. Vice Chair Phillips found the improved 12-month rolling calendar format useful, as it allows tracking of when the UAC, Finance Committee, and Council are seeing items. Commissioner Croft felt strongly about the work plan item on communication methods. Customer satisfaction survey results are on the calendar for February. Commissioner Croft wanted to know how the Utility gets information in front of customers to make them aware of everything the Utility is doing, what percentage of customers the Utility has an email or text for, and how many customers go on the portal. The number previously shared with the UAC was around 20 percent. Customers might not open their email bills, especially if they have autopay. We are trying to convince people to electrify but we do not know how many people we are communicating with. Commissioner Croft wanted perhaps an informational item addressing the questions she raised. Director Kurotori said the Utility’s communication channels and engagement could be included as an informational item for the UAC. Instead of drafting the work plan in real time on June 2, 2027, Commissioner Tucher recommended discussing it in April and finalizing it in May. Commissioner Gupta asked whether 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 Commissioner Gupta reported the following observations as the UAC representative at the June 8 City Council meeting on the Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP): Staff recommended adopting the UWMP as presented to Council, noting that it was due to the Department of Water Resources by July 1. Filing on time preserved eligibility for state grants and loans, including a $192M water loan. Staff’s position was that the UWMP was a regulatory compliance document and that it required the use of SFPUC’s supply reliability figures. This was not the forum for contesting SFPUC’s design drought. Staff had not vetted some of the amendments in the letter Commissioner Gupta drafted, which this body forwarded to Council. Public comment ran long, and most comments supported asking Council to incorporate the amendments in the UAC’s letter. Council Members suggested various mechanisms for incorporating those amendments into the UWMP. Councilmember Reckdahl asked the City Attorney about including policy remarks in a compliance document. The City Attorney was not aware of any significant legal risk from including comments. Given the length of time, Councilmember Burt was surprised that the points in the letter had not received a more substantive review. Councilmember Burt noted that the letter's underlying positions were consistent with past Council direction. Commissioner Gupta reported that the Mayor proposed adding caveat language to the document, stating that while the City’s response is based on SFPUC’s design drought and supply reliability analysis, this is not an endorsement of or concurrence in that analysis, and that the City reserves its right to object in other forums. The motion carried unanimously, 7-0. Council met the deadline to adopt the plan. Council directed staff to bring the underlying issues back for a study session after the summer break. Vice Mayor Stone said the BAWSCA chair confirmed that the design drought would be agendized at BAWSCA before the end of summer, and Commissioner Gupta believed that was the meeting that recently took place. Director Kurotori asked that the issues be referred back to the UAC to deliberate as a body and make a recommendation before Council takes it up again. The City Manager suggested holding it as a joint session with Council, and the mayor agreed; this is in the 12-month rolling calendar under Items to be Scheduled. 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.