SCE Town Hall draws few, blames outages on sensitive protective equipment
Southern California Edison representatives met with residents on Wednesday evening at a community town hall hosted by Twentynine Palms
Councilwoman April Ramirez. The meeting was billed as an opportunity to learn about Edison programs, ask questions, and discuss the area’s electric system’s future.
Only three members of the public attended the meeting, enabling an informal discussion focused primarily on infrastructure improvements in Twentynine Palms, customer assistance programs, wildfire preparedness, and energy-efficiency resources.
While residents in Yucca Mesa and Pioneertown have experienced repeated power outages over the past several weeks, those outages received little attention until the end of the meeting, when I asked Southern California Edison Program Manager Shane Massoud about the recent failures.
Massoud said the problem was traced to protective equipment on the circuit that had been set too sensitively. They were overriding all of the protective devices throughout the circuit. Massoud explained that instead of isolating a small section of the system when a fault occurred, the settings were causing power to be shut off across the entire Yucca Mesa and Pioneertown circuit.
He said crews have since installed additional protective devices and adjusted the settings while continuing to meet wildfire safety standards.
Customers affected by the outages will receive a letter explaining the changes, and Edison says it is considering a separate community meeting focused specifically on the Yucca Mesa and Pioneertown circuit.
