PG&E applies multiple layers of protection to fight wildfires

PG&E welcomes and values engagement on our Group Wildfire Security Program. We wish our clients and our hometowns to see and know the work we’re doing to make our electrical system safer and extra resilient towards the specter of wildfires.

Your current editorial (“New PG&E wildfire security technique requires scrutiny”) requested necessary questions on our efforts to mitigate wildfires.

I can say unequivocally that each one of our 26,000 coworkers at PG&E are devoted to ending catastrophic wildfires brought on by our tools. Over the previous few years, we now have lowered the wildfire danger posed by our tools by 90%, and this 12 months we estimate that we’ll obtain a 94% discount with new and expanded measures.

We’ve superior and developed our wildfire packages and instruments with the aim of delivering most danger discount on the lowest doable value to our clients.

We wish to reassure our clients that the important work of our skilled PG&E vegetation-management inspectors and our contract vegetation-management crews continues.

Every single day, we now have greater than 5,500 workers and contractors on the job all through our Northern and Central California service space working to maintain bushes and tree limbs from coming in touch with our energy strains. This 12 months, we’re additional evolving our vegetation administration packages primarily based on a risk-informed method. Latest information and evaluation highlighted that our Enhanced Vegetation Administration program danger discount was considerably lower than danger discount from our operational mitigation measures together with Enhanced Powerline Security Settings, which flip off energy in one-tenth of a second or much less when a possible hazard is detected. Because of this, we developed the EVM program to extra focused and risk-informed vegetation administration packages.

Enhanced Powerline Security Settings have been profitable at decreasing danger. Final 12 months, we achieved a 68% discount in ignitions in Excessive Hearth-Risk Districts. We additionally achieved a 99% discount in acres burned in 2022 in contrast with the common acres burned from 2018 to 2020.

And we’ve made progress in decreasing impacts to our clients. Over 80% of our clients on these circuits skilled two or fewer EPSS outages in 2022. Thus far in 2023, the quantity rises to 96% of shoppers protected by these setting experiencing  two or fewer outages.  Moreover, the place our clients have skilled an outage, we’re restoring them safely on common inside three hours, in line with final 12 months’s efficiency, which represents greater than 50% enchancment since 2021.

California nonetheless faces important challenges associated to catastrophic wildfire danger, even with the moist winter we skilled — the rain merely delayed the fireplace season however didn’t eradicate it. That’s why our method to wildfire security is adaptive and systematic and consists of a number of layers of safety.

Along with vegetation administration, EPSS, and undergrounding 10,000 miles of powerlines, our layers of safety embrace many different efforts to cut back wildfire danger:

• Strengthening the electrical system with stronger poles and lined powerlines in and close to excessive fire-risk areas.

• Investing in superior instruments and applied sciences, comparable to synthetic intelligence, and to automating hearth detection and response.

• Decreasing the impression of Public Security Energy Shutoffs (PSPS).

Whereas there have been no weather-driven PSPS outages in 2022, it continues to be a high focus for our workforce.

We additionally wish to hear from our clients immediately. We’ve invited clients to a collection of conferences within the Bay Space, together with an open home on Aug. 15 in Los Gatos, a webinar on Aug. 17 for purchasers in Castro Valley and an open home in Moraga later this month.

Every single day, our mission is to make our electrical system safer than it was the day earlier than. That’s our unwavering dedication to our clients and our hometowns.

Sumeet Singh is PG&E’s govt vp, operations, and its chief working officer.