After one of the worst wildfire seasons in California history, the state’s three largest electricity providers, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), along with a number of smaller utilities, recently submitted annual wildfire risk reduction plans to the California Public Utilities Commission, which are expected to cost more than $13 billion in 2021-2022 billion.
Last year, California experienced a record number of wildfire disasters. In the two months following Aug. 15, more than 8,400 wildfires, large and small, broke out across the state, destroying a record 4.1 million acres, killing at least 31 people and destroying 8,700 structures. The August Complex Fire alone burned more than 1 million acres.
And in recent years, California’s big power companies have been repeatedly accused of starting some of the state’s largest wildfires with their equipment and record wildfire settlements for the utilities. pg&e even filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2019 as a result.
Southern California SCE and SDG&E set aside $5 billion for wildfire mitigation
In two letters to the Public Utilities Commission last October, SC Edison said the Bobcat Fire, which erupted near the Angeles National Forest, and the Silverado Fire near the city of Irvine may have both been started by the company’s overhead equipment. Of these, the Bobcat Fire was started by a tree branch contacting a power line, while the Silverado Fire appears to have been ignited by a fire that ignited vegetation after a communications line tie collided with a 12,000-volt overhead conductor located above.
In October 2018, Southern California Edison admitted that its electrical equipment ignited a spot where the Thomas Fire, which ravaged Ventura and Santa Barbara counties (killing two people and destroying thousands of structures), started. A sensor detected an anomaly in the utility’s equipment two minutes before the Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and destroyed 1,600 buildings, broke out in November of the same year, when a power outage occurred at SCE equipment near one of its possible points of origin. In late January, SCE announced a $2.2 billion settlement of the Woolsey fire lawsuit.
This Time, SCE and SDG&E submitted plans that estimate the total cost of investing in wildfire risk reduction will reach $5 billion in 2021 and 2022.
SCE said in a statement that it invested about $1.3 billion last year to control wildfire risk and plans to invest another $3.5 billion in 2021-2022 to improve equipment detection strategies in areas of high wildfire risk; expand system reinforcement, such as installing line bulkheads for long-haul transmission lines (which are prone to ignite in contact with other conductors in high winds); establish a central data platform to strengthen risk management; and use satellite imagery improve the ability to predict and respond to wildfires; and increase aerial facilities such as firefighting helicopters.
PG&E allocates $6 billion to wildfire mitigation in Northern Canada
And PG&E, which serves 5.5 million customers in North Central Canada, has been blamed for a series of wildfires in 2017 and 2018 that killed more than 120 people and destroyed 27,000 buildings with its aging equipment.PG&E also filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 as it faces high compensation.
Last year, PG&E reached a $25.5 billion settlement in multiple wildfire lawsuits and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July. Its settlement also includes victims of the Camp Fire in 2018. The Camp Fire leveled the town of Paradise, N.C., killing 84 people and destroying a record 19,000 structures on more than 153,000 acres of overland fire.
Of PG&E’s $25.5 billion settlement, $13.5 billion is for individual compensation, $11 billion for insurance companies and another $1 billion for government agencies.
PG&E’s wildfire reduction plan for 2021-2022, submitted this time, is estimated to cost $6 billion in spending in 2021-2022; in addition, a new computerized risk system will be set up to help identify high wildfire-prone areas; weather stations will be set up in the service area as well as high-definition cameras; more fire-resistant poles will be installed and overhead wires will be buried underground to avoid poles being blown down by high winds and fires from wildfires. In addition, the company said it will work to reduce the size of fire outages, install equipment to limit power disruptions, set up microgrids that use generators to supply power, and provide more crews to repair and restore power.
PG&E officials said they estimate that extreme fire conditions will continue in California in the future and are planning and operating under that assumption.
Study: California Wildfire Season Could Be Extended
Earlier this month, a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), showed that the start of the current rainy season in California has been delayed by 27 days compared to 1960.
The researchers said that since 1960, California’s rainy season has been gradually delayed, resulting in a shorter and more rapid precipitation season in California. California’s total precipitation, the report said, has not decreased because of the delayed rainy season, but is more concentrated between December and March.
This change means that the dry, flammable vegetation will last longer each year. At the same time, this dry condition will be combined with the Santa Ana winds in Southern California, Diablo winds in Northern California (Diablo), more likely to start and fuel fires.
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