Pacific Gas & Electric to underground at least 175 miles of powerlines in fire risk areas this year

As part of efforts to speed up the undergrounding of approximately 3,600 miles of powerlines by 2026, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced plans last week to conclude work on at least 175 miles this year.

The revision, part of the company’s 2022 Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP), marks a noted uptick in efforts toward an eventual overhaul of 10,000 miles of lines total. PG&E’s focus for this is on high fire-risk areas to guarantee the safety and reliability of the grid as the climate continues to change and wildfires increase in frequency and severity year after year. Notably, all of this should now also come with a flattened out impact on customers’ bills through 2026.

“PG&E has taken a stand that catastrophic wildfires shall stop, and our Wildfire Mitigation Plan for 2022 details the work we are doing right now to make that stand a reality,” Patti Poppe, PG&E Corporation CEO, said. “Undergrounding powerlines and expanding Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings represent the best mix of long- and near-term solutions to make it safer every day for our hometowns while keeping our customers’ energy costs and bills as low as possible.”

Undergrounding has a few advantages. For one, it reduces wildfire risk overall. Beyond that, it also reduces the need for trimming and removing trees, which is both a major environmental advantage and significant annual cost savings.

As to the expanded Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings program, slated for this year, PG&E will work to immediately reduce the risk of ignitions from its electric equipment. New safety settings include rapid and automatic power shut-offs when objects such as trees or branches fall into powerlines. In a pilot effort last year, 80 percent decreases in ignitions resulted. As a result, PG&E plans to expand it to all 25,500 distribution line miles in high fire-risk areas of California. This year’s efforts will focus on reducing customers impacted, performing rapid and safe power restoration, and improving communication and resources for customers.

Finding for these wildfire mitigation actions was partly addressed in PG&E’s 2023 General Rate Case, updates submitted last week to the California Public Utilities Commission.