Pacific Gas and Electric Company to pay $1B to resolve wildfire claims
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced Wednesday that it would pay $1 billion under agreements reached to resolve the wildfire claims held by 18 local public entities impacted by the 2015 Butte Fire, 2017 Northern California wildfires and 2018 Camp Fire.
“We remain focused on supporting our customers and the communities impacted by wildfires and helping them recover and rebuild,” PG&E Corporation President and CEO Bill Johnson said. “This is an important first step toward an orderly, fair, and expeditious resolution of wildfire claims and a demonstration of our willingness to work collaboratively with stakeholders to achieve mutual acceptable resolutions. We hope to continue making progress with other stakeholders.”
Under the agreements, the payments will be made to the local government agencies as part of a Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization to be filed in PG&E’s pending Chapter 11 case (POR). The payment is subject to Bankruptcy Court confirmation of, and the occurrence of the effective date under, the POR.
Also on Wednesday, PG&E provided an update on the safety inspections and repairs conducted in high-fire threat areas over the past six months as part of PG&E’s Community Wildfire Safety Program. The program was implemented following the wildfires in 2017 and 2018 to provide additional precautionary measures to reduce wildfire risk further.
Through the end of May, PG&E said, it has completed visual inspections of approximately 99 percent of its distribution infrastructure and visual or aerial inspections of approximately 98 percent of its transmission infrastructure in high-fire threat areas. Throughout the inspection process, the company has been addressing and repairing conditions that pose an immediate safety risk and completing other high-priority repairs on an accelerated basis. Repairs for all other conditions will be completed as part of PG&E’s work execution plan.
“We’ve just concluded one of the most advanced inspections of our electric infrastructure in the high-fire threat areas and the number of safety issues we identified is unacceptable,” Johnson said. “The safety of our customers and communities must be the driving factor in our approach to maintaining our electric system. The efforts and dedication of the more than 2,000 PG&E employees and contractors during this inspection and repair process is a start in the right direction.”
Exponent, an independent third-party scientific and engineering consulting firm, is currently conducting a records-based review of the Caribou-Palermo transmission line, which was permanently deenergized after CAL FIRE identified it as an ignition point of the Camp Fire. PG&E identified a significant number of high-priority conditions on the Caribou-Palermo line. Exponent is expected to complete its review over the next few months.
PG&E also identified several high-priority issues on a section of the Ignacio-Alto-Sausalito transmission line, which runs through parts of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and serves the city of Sausalito. PG&E identified 11 towers in the GGNRA with high-priority conditions, 10 of which will require complete replacement. The repair work will require the construction of a temporary transmission line to provide electric service. PG&E is continuing to assess additional structures on the line.
PG&E provided results of the enhanced and accelerated inspections to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and will make the status of the high-priority repairs publicly available on its website on or before July 15.
“The unmistakable message of the inspection results is that we as a company must do a much better job of making sure that we maintain our assets in a way that puts safety first,” Sumeet Singh, PG&E vice president of the Community Wildfire Safety Program, said. “The unprecedented amount of work we’ve put into the inspections and completing all of the accessible identified high-priority repairs puts us on a path to becoming the company that our customers deserve.”
