Pacific Gas and Electric will cut off electricity more automatically, more thoroughly and over a wider area when “extreme fire risk conditions” are present. That’s one of the wildfire risk mitigation measures it promises to implement this year.
Along with five other privately owned Californian electric utilities, PG&E submitted its wildfire prevention plan to the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday. It says it will inspect more lines, cut down more trees and harden more equipment in the coming months and years, as well as aggressively turning off power when the threat of wildfires is high. The proactive power cuts will be greatly expanded, to include…
- 25,200 miles of low voltage distribution lines, up from 7,100 miles.
- 5,500 miles of transmission lines, up from 370 miles. Instead of limiting it to lines carrying 70 kilovolts or less, lines of up to 500 kilovolts will be cut off if necessary.
- Potentially 5.4 million customer premises, up from 570,000 customers.
- Areas that face an “elevated” fire threat, in addition to those that face an “extreme” one.
PG&E also says it will streamline “decision criteria to reduce the level of judgment in the criteria to the extent feasible”. In other words, reduce the opportunity for managers to dither over whether or not to cut power.
One result is predictable and entirely acceptable: more PG&E customers will complain because their power is off. That happened last year, when PG&E proactively cut power in some northern California communities in October. It’s not a huge leap of logic to suppose that the backlash made managers more reluctant to turn off the juice in November. High winds and dry conditions were present once again, and led to the Camp Fire in Butte County, which killed 86 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.
A PG&E transmission line is suspected of sparking that fire. Under the new plan, it could have been turned off – it was in a high risk area, conditions were extreme, and it was 110 kilovolts (within the new limit but over the old one) – and probably would have been if the decision had been based on automatic criteria rather than a subjective judgement call.
The plan will be reviewed by the CPUC and by the federal judge that’s supervising PG&E criminal probation. Judge William Alsup has been sharply critical of PG&E and suggested it should do many of the things proposed in the plan, although not all his suggestions were included in it.
The wildfire prevention plan notwithstanding, yesterday was not a good day for PG&E. A natural gas line exploded in San Francisco and set several buildings on fire. There were no reports of injuries. It was apparently caused when a fiber optic construction crew hit a gas line. Whenever underground construction work is done, the contractor is supposed to notify PG&E and other utilities, which are then responsible for coming out and marking where their lines are. That’s a job that PG&E is accused of shirking in the past by the CPUC. Responsibility for yesterday’s blast is yet to be determined.
Wildfire mitigation plans
Bear Valley Electric Service
Liberty Utilities
Pacific Gas and Electric
Pacificorp
San Diego Gas and Electric
Southern California Edison