Forecasted Offshore Dry Wind Event Means PG&E May Need to Proactively Turn Off Power for Safety in Targeted Portions of 24 Counties

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) continues to monitor a potentially strong and dry offshore wind event forecasted to start Wednesday evening. Given the expected conditions, PG&E began its one-day advance notifications to customers in areas where PG&E may need to proactively turn power off for safety to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines.

Potential Public Safety Power Shutoff Wednesday

The potential PSPS starting Wednesday evening could impact approximately 54,000 customers in targeted portions of 24 counties in the Northern Sierra Nevada foothills; the mid and higher elevations in the Sierra generally north of Yosemite; the North Bay mountains near Mt. St. Helena; small pockets in the East Bay near Mt. Diablo; a pocket of the Oakland Hills east of Piedmont (generally between highway 24 and Upper San Leandro Reservoir); the elevated terrain east of Milpitas around the Calaveras Reservoir; and portions of the Santa Cruz and Big Sur mountains.

Specifically, customers in portions of the following counties are being notified: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Humboldt, Lake, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba. A small number of customers in two tribal communities also may be affected.

The potential PSPS event is still over 24 hours away. PG&E’s in-house meteorologists, as well as its Wildfire Safety Operation Center (WSOC) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) will continue to monitor conditions closely, and additional customer notifications will be issued as we move closer to the potential event.

Customer notifications—via text, email and automated phone call—began late Monday afternoon, approximately two days prior to the potential shutoff. Customers enrolled in the company’s Medical Baseline Program who do not verify that they have received these important safety communications will be individually visited by a PG&E employee with a knock on their door when possible. A primary focus will be given to customers who rely on electricity for critical life-sustaining equipment.

Potentially Impacted Counties

The potential shutoff will only affect about 1% of the 5.4 million customers within PG&E’s service territory. For the Bay Area, we are forecasting an even smaller impact of less than 0.5%. Due to our improvements to the PSPS program and infrastructure over the course of 2020 – such as improved meteorology forecasting and guidance tools, sectionalizing and temporary generation to energize microgrids, substations and critical facilities – we were able to make this upcoming PSPS event significantly smaller in size.