PowerUP plans, Interlock guards. The October 2026 Malibu shutoff, replayed on the 456 homes behind SCE switch RAR8848 on Cuthbert, with our free Base batteries. Every order, PowerUP's too, passes Interlock first.
Six steps, gentle before firm, each spent only when the risk and the need justify it. Every step is a button that jumps the replay to the first full hour after its event. The last step hands the decision to a person.
Our company buys Base Core batteries and places them free in homes that volunteer to share with neighbors. On ordinary days the fleet trades; before a shutoff it holds full under PowerUP's ladder above; when SCE opens RAR8848, the 456 homes behind it run as one island on the batteries and rooftop solar, with one battery certified to form the grid. Homes without a battery subscribe for emergency power at $9.99 a month (Medical Baseline homes are covered free). In a shutoff every kWh on the island costs twice SCE's top residential TOU price, billed by SCE; batteries and solar roofs that sell into the island are paid for every kWh. The stretch is last in its series (breaker, then RCS0036, then RAR8848), sits on the coastal flats 9 km from the Bryson burn, and was opened alone only once while the Cuthbert breaker cut the whole circuit 15 times, so these homes are mostly collateral.
Holding costs the trading a battery gives up on those days (real CAISO day-ahead values for SCE, Oct to Dec 2025, $0.91 a day). SCE notified 3.3 customers for every one it cut in its Jan 20 2025 event, so every rule pays for false alarms too. Lead times are real, from the Bryson Fire: first Santa Ana signal 6.5 days ahead, SCE named Cuthbert 3 days ahead.
Real: RAR8848's 456 customers, Cuthbert's shutoff history 2019 to Jan 2025, Malibu's 7.1 home batteries (median 20 kWh) and 8.4 solar-only roofs per 100 homes, Medical Baseline 2.6% (SCE's Dec 2024 report on Maguire). Estimated: switch positions and where each home sits. Assumed: who joins (60% of battery owners, 90% of homes without a battery as $9.99 subscribers, every medical home), 27 kWh a day per roof, 8 kWh a day of critical load per receiving home, the installed cost, capacity price and event count.