Prospects in 27 Counties Now Profit from Newly Put in Underground
Powerlines that Enhance Reliability and Eradicate Practically All Wildfire Danger in a Given Location
This comes on the heels of PG&E finishing greater than 360 miles of undergrounding in 2023, representing essentially the most undergrounding accomplished in a single 12 months by the corporate. Prospects in 27 counties are actually being served by these buried traces, completely lowering 98% of wildfire danger in these areas and likewise bringing vital reliability enhancements.
“Undergrounding powerlines is a key layer of protection in our strategy to reduce wildfire risk and improve reliability for our customers,” mentioned
PG&E stays dedicated to undergrounding powerlines in high-risk areas as a part of its wildfire mitigation efforts as a result of transferring powerlines underground is the best resolution to completely scale back wildfire danger, enhance reliability and scale back working prices over the long run.
Undergrounding Progress and Lengthy-Time period Plans
As of this week, PG&E has accomplished greater than 187 miles of labor towards the corporate’s goal of undergrounding 250 miles in 2024. In latest weeks, clients within the
PG&E plans to finish an extra 330 miles of undergrounding in 2025 and one other 440 miles in 2026. This work can be focused within the highest wildfire-risk parts of the corporate’s service space and can carry PG&E to a complete of greater than 1,600 whole miles of undergrounding accomplished throughout 30 counties in Northern and
Updates on the corporate’s undergrounding progress are shared month-to-month on pge.com/undergrounding. Prospects and stakeholders can also view an interactive map highlighting the place all PG&E wildfire security work, together with accomplished and forecasted undergrounding, is occurring by visiting pge.com/progressmap.
To find out the highest-risk traces for undergrounding, PG&E makes use of machine-learning-based danger modeling. That features superior fire-propagation expertise, developed by an organization named Technosylva and likewise utilized by
For undergrounding workplans in 2027 and past, PG&E will analyze extra tasks in excessive fire-risk areas. Precedence is given to the highest-risk circuits. Particulars on long-term plans can be shared in PG&E’s 10-12 months Electrical Undergrounding Plan to be filed in 2025.
PG&E’s layers of safety, together with undergrounding, have considerably lowered wildfire danger throughout its service space, leading to no catastrophic fires from firm tools in 2023 and a big discount in wildfire danger since 2018.
Further layers of wildfire safety embrace:
- Strengthening the electrical system with sturdy poles and coated powerlines in and close to excessive fire-risk areas.
- Deploying Enhanced Powerline Security Settings (EPSS) to lower ignitions and supply wildfire safety to 44,000 line miles and all 1.8 million clients dwelling in excessive fire-risk areas. In 2023, there was a 72% discount in CPUC-reportable ignitions on EPSS-enabled traces in Excessive Hearth-Risk Districts (in comparison with the 2018-2020 common).
- Persevering with to cut back the influence of Public Security Energy Shutoffs, which stays a high focus for the corporate.
- Managing timber and different vegetation situated close to powerlines that might trigger an influence outage and/or ignition.
- Leveraging a community of over 1,500 climate stations, or one station each 18 line-miles, to higher predict and reply to extreme climate threats.
- Utilizing 600 high-definition cameras, which offer the flexibility to see greater than 90% of the excessive fire-risk areas.
- Investing in superior instruments and applied sciences like synthetic intelligence and drones that assist automate fireplace detection and response.
Observe to Media: B-roll footage is on the market upon request.
About PG&E
Pacific Gasoline and Electrical Firm, a subsidiary of PG&E Company (NYSE:PCG), is a mixed and electrical utility serving greater than 16 million individuals throughout 70,000 sq. miles in Northern and
