As California’s Traditional Fire Season Starts, PG&E Turns on Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings Across All High Fire-Risk Areas
EPSS Technology, Rolled Out in 2021, Continues to Significantly Reduce Ignitions That Can Lead to Catastrophic Wildfires
The safety settings turn off power within one-tenth of a second when a fault, such as a tree limb coming into contact with a powerline, is detected. Last year, on 170 circuits with safety settings enabled, there was an 80% reduction in CPUC-reportable ignitions in High Fire Threat Districts that could result in a wildfire, compared to the prior three-year average.
Based on EPSS’s success in 2021 as a proven wildfire prevention technology,
Through
Although these enhanced safety settings help keep our customers safe and prevent wildfires, they can also result in outages. Recognizing how difficult it is to be without power,
“When we stop ignitions, we stop wildfires,” said
Some of the steps
- Conducting reliability and operational improvements to minimize customer impacts from outages on safety setting-enabled lines
- Pruning and removing vegetation in targeted locations to improve reliability
When an outage occurs on an EPSS-enabled circuit,
For customers who are served by EPSS-enabled circuits,
- Generator Rebate Program for customers who rely on well water, customers in our Medical Baseline Program and certain small businesses. For 2022, we have expanded funding and eligibility.
- Portable Battery Program for eligible customers in our Medical Baseline Program who live in high fire-threat areas or have experienced two or more Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) outages since 2020. For 2022, we have removed the low-income requirement.
- Expansion of the Backup Power Transfer Meter offering to all customers on EPSS-capable circuits, making it easier and safer for customers to connect a generator.
The enhanced safety settings are just one component of PG&E’s comprehensive Community Wildfire Safety Program, which includes putting 10,000 miles of powerlines underground, creating microgrids to keep key community facilities energized during outages and an ever-growing number of situational awareness tools such as weather stations and high-definition cameras. Information can be found at www.pge.com/wildfiresafety.
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