Highlights Ongoing Work and Investments to Help Keep Customers and
Communities Safe
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
As part of its ongoing commitment to reducing wildfire risk, Pacific Gas
and Electric Company (PG&E) today submitted its 2019
Wildfire Safety Plan to the California Public Utilities Commission.
The safety plan marks an expansion of enhanced and additional safety
precautions PG&E began implementing in 2017 and 2018 to address the
growing threat of extreme weather and wildfires across its service area.
Given the continued and growing threat of extreme weather and wildfires,
and as an additional precautionary measure, PG&E’s plan includes
expanding and enhancing its Community Wildfire Safety Program to further
reduce wildfire risks and help keep customers and the communities it
serves safe. Ongoing and expanded efforts include further enhancing
vegetation management around power lines, conducting enhanced safety
inspections of electric infrastructure in high fire-threat areas, and a
hardening of our electric system.
Also included in the 2019 plan, PG&E announced additional and enhanced
safety precautions including the expansion of PG&E’s Public Safety Power
Shutoff (PSPS) program to include all electric lines that pass through
high fire-threat areas – both transmission and distribution. While
customers in high fire-threat areas are more likely to be affected, any
of PG&E’s more than 5 million electric customers could have their power
shut off for safety only as a last resort when forecasted fire danger
conditions warrant.
“We know how much our customers rely on electric service. Proactively
turning off power is a highly complex issue with significant public
safety risks on both sides – all of which need to be carefully
considered and addressed,” said Michael Lewis, Electric Operations
senior vice president. “We understand and appreciate that turning off
the power affects first responders and the operation of critical
facilities, communications systems and much more. We will only turn off
power for public safety and only as a last resort to keep our customers
and communities safe.”
To be clear, the decision to initiate a PSPS is informed by local
forecasts, so PG&E is not indicating that it would ever turn off power
to all customers at once. Instead, due to the complexity of the electric
grid, and the web-like connection between transmission lines,
distribution lines and substations, there is a possibility that some
customers outside a high-risk fire threat area, could have their power
turned off based on the need to turn off a specific high-voltage
circuit. The expanded program includes timely notification to customers
of potential PSPS events.
The program will now include 25,200 distribution circuit miles, up from
7,100 last year, and about 5,500 circuit miles of transmission lines
including 500 kV, up from 373 circuit miles of transmission lines at 70
kV and below, across elevated and extreme-fire risk areas, designated by
the CPUC High Fire Threat District map adopted in January 2018.
PG&E’s 2019 Wildfire Safety Plan describes forecasted work and
investments in 2019 to help further reduce the potential for wildfire
ignitions associated with its electrical equipment in high fire-threat
areas. It also reflects the unique size and geography of PG&E’s
70,000-square-mile service area of which more than half is located in
extreme or elevated fire-threat areas.
“Our state is faced with an extended and more dangerous wildfire season
that demands urgent action and coordination. While California’s energy
companies have a critical responsibility and role to play in reducing
wildfire risk, we must all work together to keep our communities safe,”
said Sumeet Singh, vice president of the Community Wildfire Safety
Program. “The wildfire safety actions and programs described in our 2019
plan address the company’s unique and diverse service area and provide
our regulators, customers and communities with transparency of our
unwavering efforts to help further reduce the risk of wildfire and
improve public safety.”
California faces an increasing threat from catastrophic wildfires,
extreme weather and higher temperatures, and recent state and federal
climate assessments warn the threat is only growing. Multiple factors
contribute to wildfire risk across PG&E’s service area. These include
vast tree mortality following a historic five-year drought. Fire season
is now extended due to prolonged periods of high temperatures, extreme
dryness, tinder-dry grass and record-high winds increasing the number of
wildfires and making them more dangerous.
The 2019 plan addresses an array of wildfire risk factors through new
and ongoing measures. Among the safety steps and actions include:
-
Installing nearly 600 new, high-definition cameras, made available to
CAL FIRE and local fire officials, in high fire-threat areas by 2022,
increasing coverage across high fire-risk areas to more than 90
percent;
-
Adding approximately 1,300 additional new weather stations by 2022, at
a density of one station roughly every 20 circuit miles in high
fire-risk areas;
-
Conducting enhanced safety inspections of electric infrastructure in
high-fire threat areas, including approximately 725,000 electric
towers and poles across more than 5,500 transmission line miles and
25,200 distribution line miles;
-
Further enhancing vegetation management efforts across high-fire risk
areas (25,000 miles of lines) to address vegetation that poses higher
potential for wildfire risk, including clearing overhanging branches
directly above and around power lines;
-
Continuing to disable automatic reclosing in high fire-threat areas
during wildfire season and periods of high fire-risk and upgrading
more reclosers and circuit breakers in high fire-threat areas with
remote control capabilities;
-
Installing stronger and more resilient poles and covered power lines,
including targeted undergrounding, starting in areas with the highest
fire risk, ultimately upgrading and strengthening approximately 7,100
miles over the next 10 years; and
-
Partnering with additional communities in high fire-threat areas to
create new resilience zones that can power central community resources
during a Public Safety Power Shutoff.
The safety plan builds on PG&E’s comprehensive Community
Wildfire Safety Program, launched in March 2018. PG&E has completed
or is implementing these important safety enhancements and investments
to help keep our customers and communities safe. Some of the actions
taken include:
-
Established a new 24/7 Wildfire Safety Operations Center to monitor
wildfire risks in real-time and coordinate prevention and response
efforts;
-
Expanded its network of PG&E weather stations to enhance weather
forecasting and modeling and better predict where wildfire danger
could occur, with more than 200 new weather stations installed to date;
-
Installed new high-definition cameras in high fire-threat areas in
Napa, Marin and Sonoma counties to improve real-time monitoring across
high fire-risk areas;
-
Enhanced vegetation management practices to meet and exceed new state
vegetation and fire safety standards that require greater clearances
between trees and power lines across 25,200 miles of distribution line
in high fire-threat areas;
-
Developed a new program to proactively turn off power for safety, only
as a last resort, when extreme fire danger conditions are forecasted
(Public Safety Power Shutoff), and coordinated efforts with public
safety authorities and other community partners;
-
Disabled automatic reclosing of circuit breakers and reclosers on
power lines in high fire-threat areas during the 2018 wildfire season,
and expanded automation of over 400 reclosing devices;
-
Initiated construction on a pilot resilience zone project in Angwin
(Napa County), which includes infrastructure upgrades that enables the
company to provide electricity to central community resources if power
lines need to be turned off for safety due to high wildfire threats;
and
-
Held over 450 meetings with state and local community leaders and
emergency response partners around wildfire safety and preparedness.
Open and Transparent Public Process
PG&E’s 2019 Wildfire Safety Plan is subject to open and transparent
public review and annual approval by the CPUC. PG&E strongly supports
and encourages its customers and communities to provide feedback and
participate in this important public process.
Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes forward-looking statements that are not
historical facts, including statements about the beliefs, expectations,
estimates, future plans and strategies of PG&E Corporation and Pacific
Gas and Electric Company. These statements are based on current
expectations and assumptions, which management believes are reasonable,
and on information currently available to management, but are
necessarily subject to various risks and uncertainties. In addition to
the risk that these assumptions prove to be inaccurate, factors that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated
by the forward-looking statements include the timing and outcome of the
Chapter 11 proceedings and of the investigations into the Camp Fire, and
other factors disclosed in PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric
Company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31,
2017, their most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter
ended September 30, 2018, and their subsequent reports filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and
Electric Company undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise
any forward-looking statements, whether due to new information, future
events or otherwise.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San
Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of
the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and pge.com/news.
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415-973-5930
Source: PG&E Corporation