LAKEPORT—What started out to be a PR show-and-tell by PG&E executives was doused by a show of discontent from district supervisors and attendees at Tuesday’s Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting.
At issue is the frequency of power outages and their impact on area residents and businesses as California continues to experience wildfire risks, and what PG&E is doing and needs to do for its 37,780 customers in the county. To keep the BOS informed about its improvement efforts, PG&E’s Community Wildlife Safety Program was jointly presented to the BOS by Ron Richardson, Regional Vice President of North Coast Division; Carl Schoenhofer, Senior Manager of Humboldt Division (includes Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma Counties); and Melinda Rivera, Local Government Affairs, Lake and Sonoma Counties.
According to Richardson, PG&E aims to provide support before, during and after a fire event with a safety program designed to reduce wildfire potential, improve situational awareness, and reduce the impacts of PSPS (public safety, power shutoff). PSPS is an action taken by a utility company to prevent wildfires when high temperatures, extreme dryness and strong winds threaten the electric system.
To reduce wildfire potential, PG&E activities include asset inspection and repair, enhanced vegetation management, device replacement and PSPS. To help improve situational awareness, PG&E uses a Wildfire Safety Operations Center, weather stations, high definition cameras, meteorology and satellite detection.
To lessen the impacts of PSPS, PG&E is focusing on areas of highest risk and continues to make adjustments based on feedback and past experience.
Richardson said PG&E is implementing safety settings on some power lines, planning the undergrounding of 10,000 miles of overhead electric distribution lines, treating all electric outages as an emergency, addressing high-priority vegetation issues, and conducting patrols by helicopter, truck or on foot. He explained that settings, which used to take 10 seconds to shut off power, have been changed to shut off power within one-tenth of a second. “We check the lines for damage before safely restoring power,” Richardson said.
By making the setting change, “PG&E has been able to reduce ignition rates by 50%,” Richardson added.
What can local communities expect? Schoenhofer said that when an outage occurs, PG&E teams will assess the outage area and notify customers through automated calls; conduct patrols and make repairs, if needed; and provide updates through social media. PG&E’s website will be updated with outage information and estimated power restoration time. Customers can go to PG&E’s website to sign up for alerts via email.
Data used in the presentation shows that between January 1, 2021 and September 13, 2021, the substations with the highest number of outages were Middletown at 205, Highlands at 163, Konocti at 155 and Redbud at 103. The average outage duration across all the substations ranged from 4.3 hours to 11.9 hours. Among the outage causes identified, planned PG&E work ranked the highest at 67%. PG&E equipment was second at 13%, and all other causes combined totaled 21%.
Rivera encouraged the public to visit the PG&E website for other useful information and how to report potential safety issues to PG&E.
Reaction to PG&E presentation
The district supervisors expressed their appreciation for PG&E’s presentation but regarded the company as falling short of their expectations.
District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska was thankful for PG&E’s work at the Cobb Elementary School but noted there were five outages in September at that location. She questioned the sustainability of outages and the use of generators that are toxic to the air. She also pointed out that Twitter, one of PG&E’s methods of communication, was not widely used in the county.
“There’s still more room for improvement,” Pyska said.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier took issue with data showing the majority of the outages (67%) was due to PG&E’s scheduled work. “I want to focus on reliability,” Sabatier said. “How can you implement planned work better so as not to turn off power?” He admitted that undergrounding was one of the most important work to be done and wondered why that could not take place when PG&E decides to rebuild. “You always rebuild what we had,” he said. “Can’t you make changes at rebuild, such as undergrounding , instead of creating new potential hazard?”
“We want to be on top of the list for underground wiring,” he added.
Sabatier also questioned the practicality of encouraging the use of generators when “they will eventually be banned (Assembly Bill 1346)” to control air pollution. (PG&E offers a generator rebate program.) He said that for the “medically fragile, refilling generators has become a problem.” Sabatier suggested that PG&E should “get away from partial trimming of trees and maybe look at cutting down trees completely and replanting trees elsewhere.”
District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon wanted to see data for the entire county. He asked how the change to the trip sensor will impact the county as a whole. He mentioned the need for reimbursement when people lose food and supplies as a result of an outage. “They need to be reimbursed by PG&E,” Simon said. He also called out PG&E’s tree-trimming and hauling practices, noting that cutting off two feet was not adequate. He said PG&E should have a more robust chipping and removal program. “PG&E needs to take care of dead and dying trees,” he said.
District 3 Supervisor Eddie Crandell commented, “As we are in the midst of a pandemic, any outage is one more obstacle for businesses.”
Public comment ranged from support for undergrounding and decreasing overground wiring, increasing notification time of a planned outage, replacement of food and supplies lost during an outage, and addressing the loss of internet and cell phone services during an outage. One Zoom attendee mentioned PG&E’s involvement in the Dixie Fire that started in mid-July and still active in five counties, saying, “You have us in a horrendous position. Where is the conscience of PG&E?”
