SACRAMENTO – The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (Energy Safety) today issued a revision notice to Liberty Utilities’ (Liberty) for its 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP). The revision notice identified 10 critical issues with Liberty’s WMP that must be satisfactorily addressed for the plan to be considered for approval. Liberty has 30 days to correct these issues and submit an updated plan. A public comment period will follow.
The 10 critical issues include:
Risk Methodology and Assessment
RN-LU-26-01: Liberty’s risk modeling framework and calculations overemphasized Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) and outage risk.
RN-LU-26-02: Liberty’s description of its risk model validation reporting and internal review processes were vague and lacked the detail necessary for progress tracking.
RN-LU-26-03: Liberty’s risk reduction assessment lacked maturity and did not accurately assess mitigation activities’ effectiveness.
Grid Design, Operations, and Maintenance
RN-LU-26-04: Liberty’s response to area for continued improvement LU-23B-06 “Effectiveness of Sensitive Relay Profile (SRP) and Traditional Hardening,” was insufficient.
RN-LU-26-05: Liberty’s response to area for continued improvement LU-25U-04 “Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Stateline Resiliency Project,” was insufficient.
RN-LU-26-06: Liberty’s response to area for continue improvement LU-23B-10 “Distribution Detailed Inspection Frequency,” was insufficient.
RN-LU-26-07: Liberty’s response to area for continued improvement LU-25U-06 “Additional Inspection Practices,” was insufficient.
Vegetation Management and Inspections
RN-LU-26-08: Liberty’s targets for Vegetation Management Inspection Program – Detailed (WMP-VM-INSP-01) were not aligned with the program’s scope of work commitment.
RN-LU-26-09: Liberty’s pole clearing targets did not adhere to WMP Guidelines.
RN-LU-26-10: Liberty’s proposed unit of measurement for its wood and slash management target did not support its scope of work.
Energy Safety’s revision notice includes required remedies for these critical issues that Liberty must satisfactorily address or risk denial of it 2026-2028 WMP. Stakeholders will have an opportunity to submit comments following Energy Safety’s receipt of Liberty’s revised plan.
The revision notice includes a timetable for the process. Liberty’s revision notice response and revised plan is due Nov. 21, public comments are due Dec. 10 and reply comments are due Dec. 21. Energy Safety will issue a draft decision in March.