PG&E Submits 2019 Wildfire Safety Plan; With Additional Safety Precautions and Significantly Expanded Public Safety Power Shutoff Program

As part of its ongoing commitment to reducing wildfire risk, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today submitted its 2019 Wildfire Safety Plan to the California Public Utilities Commission. The safety plan marks an expansion of enhanced and additional safety precautions PG&E began implementing in 2017 and 2018 to address the growing threat of extreme weather and wildfires across its service area.

Given the continued and growing threat of extreme weather and wildfires, and as an additional precautionary measure, PG&E’s plan includes expanding and enhancing its Community Wildfire Safety Program to further reduce wildfire risks and help keep customers and the communities it serves safe. Ongoing and expanded efforts include further enhancing vegetation management around power lines, conducting enhanced safety inspections of electric infrastructure in high fire-threat areas, and a hardening of our electric system.

Also included in the 2019 plan, PG&E announced additional and enhanced safety precautions including the expansion of PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program to include all electric lines that pass through high fire-threat areas – both transmission and distribution. While customers in high fire-threat areas are more likely to be affected, any of PG&E’s more than 5 million electric customers could have their power shut off for safety only as a last resort when forecasted fire danger conditions warrant.

“We know how much our customers rely on electric service. Proactively turning off power is a highly complex issue with significant public safety risks on both sides – all of which need to be carefully considered and addressed,” said Michael Lewis, Electric Operations senior vice president. “We understand and appreciate that turning off the power affects first responders and the operation of critical facilities, communications systems and much more. We will only turn off power for public safety and only as a last resort to keep our customers and communities safe.”

To be clear, the decision to initiate a PSPS is informed by local forecasts, so PG&E is not indicating that it would ever turn off power to all customers at once. Instead, due to the complexity of the electric grid, and the web-like connection between transmission lines, distribution lines and substations, there is a possibility that some customers outside a high-risk fire threat area, could have their power turned off based on the need to turn off a specific high-voltage circuit. The expanded program includes timely notification to customers of potential PSPS events.