- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
PG&E reports on preparations for PSPS events, plans to shorten and narrow shutoffs
During the webinar, Matt Pender, director PG&E's Community Wildfire Safety Program, said the season for PSPS events remains Sept. 1 and beyond, when weather patterns tend to move toward dry winds from the east.
The goal is to make such PSPS events shorter in duration. However, while Pender said they think that longer events of three to five days are relatively unlikely – last year, Lake County was without power for six days – he said longer events are possible depending on the weather.
One of the main speakers for the Wednesday webinar was Carl Schoenhofer, senior manager of PG&E’s Humboldt and North Valley divisions.
He acknowledged that PG&E was in Butte County Superior Court this week for its role in the November 2018 Camp fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 84 people.
On Monday, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire, the result of a March agreement reached with the Butte County District Attorney’s Office.
Following the Monday court appearance, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsay called the plea “unprecedented in nature” and “a historic moment.”
“The lessons we've learned from the fire are being taken to heart and driving comprehensive changes currently underway at PG&E,” Schoenhofer said. “These changes are being done to make sure the tragedy that occurred in that community never occurs again. We cannot replace everything that was lost, but we hope by pleading guilty and accepting accountability compensating the victims and rebuilding paradise to honor those that were lost will help this community move forward.”
Measures to reduce size, scope of PSPS events
Schoenhofer then turned to the measures the company is now taking, explaining that the number of high fire threat areas in the PG&E service area have increased by more than 50 percent in the last eight years.
As a result, the company has implemented the PSPS when severe weather – including high winds and dry conditions – threatens a portion of the electric system. He said the most likely electric lines to be shut off will be those that pass through the high fire threat areas, although power to homes and businesses miles away could experience outages if the transmission lines that serve those areas are in the threat area.
While no single factor will drive a public safety power shutoff event, Schoenhofer said the deciding factors generally include a red flag warning issued by the National Weather Service. Factors contributing to those red flag warnings are low humidity levels and high winds.
He said PG&E has looked at weather model data collected over the last 30 years and developed a conservative estimate of the number of potential PSPS events that can be expected to occur.
In 2019, Lake and Mendocino counties had four PSPS events while the historical weather analysis would have anticipated maybe one event per year, he said.
Schoenhofer said PG&E is making PSPS events smaller in size and shorter in length. The company’s goal this year is to reduce the number of customers affected by a PSPS by nearly one-third compared to last year. When the shutoffs do occur, the company plans to shorten the duration and restore customers twice as fast after the severe weather event has passed.
The company is installing more than 600 devices systemwide that are capable of redirecting power and limiting the size of the outages so fewer communities are without power. Schoenhofer said they also are installing microgrids that use generators to serve portions of communities that include community resource centers, hospitals, police and fire stations, and gas stations and markets.
The restoration process will be sped up by using more helicopters to inspect potential damage to power equipment. He said PG&E has increased the contracted helicopters from 35 to 65 and is commissioning new airplanes for patrols that will utilize infrared equipment capable of nighttime inspections.
Weather stations and cameras part of preparedness plan
Dave Hotchkiss, PG&E’s public safety specialist, said the company is adding approximately 400 new weather stations this year for a total of 1,300 stations by the end or by 2022. This will equate to roughly one weather station per 20 circuit miles in the high fire threat areas.
In Lake County, Hotchkiss said PG&E currently has 20 weather stations installed with four additional remote automated weather stations that are either operated by the United States Forest Service or Cal Fire. In Mendocino County, PG&E has 30 weather stations, with another seven that are Forest Service or Cal Fire stations.
He said the data collected by these stations is streamed in real-time and available to municipalities, fire agencies, county and state Office of Emergency Services officials, and the public online. The company’s website also offers real-time weather information.
Earlier this week, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a proposal by PG&E to create microgrids to reduce the number of customers affected by public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, events, as Lake County News has reported.
Hotchkiss said PG&E is installing hundreds of new sectional devices in its service territory which separate the grid into smaller parts and keep the lights on for customers during PSPS events. For 2020, 11 such devices are planned to be installed in Lake County and 19 are planned in Mendocino County.
Last year, neither Lake nor Mendocino County had any microgrids established. Hotchkiss said that PG&E is setting up six possible sites this year in Lake County and 10 in Mendocino County.
Enhanced vegetation management is another aspect of PG&E’s effort to minimize fire starts, Hotchkis said.
For 2020 the company is focusing on vegetation work along 34 line miles in Lake County, which he said is an area stretching from Cobb to Middletown and toward Lower Lake and the city of Clearlake. In Mendocino County PG&E has 48 line miles targeted, including portions north of Laytonville toward Leggett and south to Willits and Potter Valley.
Schoenhofer said that since 2019 PG&E has been working with counties and tribes to improve community resource center locations to better serve our customers and communities.
They’re working to secure locations with permanent structures and have received more than 300 site recommendations that they are currently reviewing. Schoenhofer said PG&E has a team exploring options to provide key resources depending on what COVID-19 social distancing precautions may be in place during the fire season. Those options could include a mobile van, a pop-up tent or possibly reconfigured community resource centers.
Pender explained that there are two kinds of microgrids they can use to deploy generation and power up the customers who are safe to energize during PSPS events. They have five substation locations identified for that equipment in Lake County this year.
During the meeting, officials were asked about older equipment, some of which could be more than 100 years old. Older equipment was faulted for the Camp fire.
Pender said that the company, based on its inspections of equipment in 2019, is working on a new inspection cycle where every year equipment in the extreme fire threat area, also known as Tier 3, is inspected, with assets in Tier 2 to be inspected every third year.
The full webinar presentation will be posted in the PG&E website in the near future, the company reported.
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