PGE

Stark contrast between PG&E, SCE decisions and SDG&E’s wildfire prevention actions

8 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Sdge berg electric

Turning off electric power lines in dry, windy conditions is one way to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. The California Public Utilities Commission is about to start the wheels turning on an investigation into how and when that should be done. Optimistically, the draft order instituting rulemaking predicts that it’ll be wrapped up sometime next summer.

Last summer, the CPUC allowed Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and a handful of smaller “investor owned” electric utilities to do the same kind of proactive de-energisation that San Diego Gas and Electric has been allowed to do since 2008.… More

Plan to allow electric utilities to pass on 2018 wildfire costs to customers is on hold

5 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Any help with wildfire liability that major electric companies might be expecting from the California legislature will wait until next month. Assemblyman Chris Holden (D – Los Angeles) didn’t introduce his planned bill when the legislature met briefly to swear in new members and open the new session. Holden had planned to, at a minimum, allow Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison to add damage costs to customers’ bills for 2018 wildfires. The legislature voted in August to allow them to pass on those costs to consumers for fires in 2017 and 2019 and beyond.… More

Investor-owned electric utilities won’t be California’s competitive broadband hope

27 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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The door has officially closed on expansions of Pacific Gas and Electric’s and Southern California Edison’s telecommunications businesses. It’s a small issue compared to the wildfire disasters that both companies are grappling with, but it could have a significant and ongoing effect on California’s uncompetitive broadband services market.

At its last meeting, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to allow PG&E to withdraw its application to become a certified telecommunications company. It applied last year, hoping to make better use of the 2,600 miles of fiber optic routes it owns in northern California.… More

Fires will drive price hikes for electricity and broadband

24 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Pacific Gas and Electric and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Southern California Edison face the potential of billions of dollars of liability for 1. this year’s wildfires, 2. last year’s wildfires and 3. preventing next year’s wildfires. Someone will have to pay the tab that fires have already run up in California. Under state law, if a utility is even partly to blame it has to bear the full burden, generally. But utilities, even highly regulated ones like privately owned electric companies, can pass some or all of those costs on to their customers.… More

PG&E reports second “incident” near Camp Fire ignition point, faces CPUC investigation

17 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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At least 71 people are dead, more than a thousand are missing, and the fight to contain the Camp Fire in Butte County continues. As dense smoke settled over its San Francisco headquarters, the California Public Utilities Commission said it will take a hard look at Pacific Gas and Electric, which might have been responsible for starting it.

In yet another bizarre twist to the story, PG&E filed a second incident report with the CPUC late yesterday afternoon, revealing that it “experienced an outage on the Big Bend 1101 12kV circuit in Butte County”, in the community of Concow, at 6:45 a.m.… More

SDG&E shuts off electricity in fire danger areas, possible SCE link to Woolsey blaze ignition

12 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Update, 13:48, 12 November 2018: SCE has begun proactive shutoffs, according to its website “due to dangerous high winds in Red Flag fire areas, SCE shut off power to roughly 50 customers in the Moorpark area at about 10:50 a.m. this morning”.

Much of California is under a red flag warning this morning. High winds and dangerously dry conditions could mean yet more wildfires, and more trouble for the three major fires already burning. The death toll from the Camp Fire in Butte County rose to 29 overnight, with hundreds of people still missing.… More

Californians must choose between tragedy and inconvenience. It’s not hard

10 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Three massive wildfires continue to burn this morning in California; one in Butte County, two in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The cost in human life is immeasurable, with nine people confirmed dead in northern California and many more missing. There’s no way to gauge the damage to property and the disruption to lives: what is the price of a town burned to the ground?

The town is, or was, Paradise, a community of 26,000 people in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills.… More

PG&E didn’t start any fires this week and Californians complain

16 October 2018 by Steve Blum
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Pacific Gas and Electric began shutting down electric lines in high risk fire zones on Sunday night, as winds topping 50 miles per hour ripped through northern California. At last report, PG&E had cut power in seven counties – Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lake, Napa, Placer and Sonoma. Crews inspected lines for damage yesterday, as PG&E gradually restored power to the majority of blacked out customers. The job is expected to be finished today.

On Sunday, alerts were broadcast widely.… More

Former chief judge sues CPUC, claims firing due to PG&E investigation retaliation, racial bias

15 October 2018 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission is being sued by its former chief administrative law judge, Karen Clopton. She was fired from her job in 2017.

One of the few things the two sides agree on is that “the CPUC terminated [Clopton’s] employment” and that it was an “adverse action”, as one of the commission’s filings put it. The formal reason for the dismissal isn’t stated in court documents, by either side.

Clopton charges that the real reason she was fired was racial discrimination – she’s African American – and as retaliation for her cooperation “with state and federal investigations into the misconduct of CPUC commissioners and staff”, including allegations of “judge shopping”, during the CPUC’s own investigation of the fatal PG&E gas line explosion in San Bruno in 2010.… More

PG&E responsible for Yuba County fire, AT&T is in the clear Cal Fire report says

11 October 2018 by Steve Blum
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Pacific Gas and Electric power lines were the cause of the Cascade fire in Yuba County last year, one of many fires that came to be known collectively as the “October 2018 Fire Siege”. That’s according to an investigation report released by the California Department of Forestry and Fire protection. However, unlike some of the other fires where PG&E was implicated, the cause was not the result of a failure to follow laws regarding utility line maintenance and operations.… More