SACRAMENTO – The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (Energy Safety) today issued its Annual Report on Compliance (ARC) for the Bear Valley Electric Service (BVES) 2023 Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP).
Energy Safety’s evaluation of the BVES 2023 WMP initiatives found that the company completed 55 of 65, or 85 percent, of its 2023 targets for initiative activities and objectives in its 2023-2025 Base WMP. Of the 55 completed initiatives, eight were from the largest 10 initiatives by planned expenditure. Overall, BVES failed to meet targets for 10 of its 2023 WMP initiative activities and objectives, but despite the 10 missed targets, BVES was largely successful in removing the originally planned risk from its system.
There are still however areas to improve upon and opportunities to continue learning for BVES, especially considering the missed initiative targets. Energy Safety has identified areas for improvement (in the accuracy of documentation of its WMP implementation) and expects BVES to improve the accuracy and quality of its documentation going forward.
Energy Safety will continue to monitor BVES and its implementation of ongoing wildfire mitigation activities and push the company to improve its ability to ultimately eliminate utility-caused catastrophic wildfires in California.