PG&E Responds to Inaccurate Claims About the Cost and Effectiveness of its Powerline Undergrounding Program in Reducing Wildfire Risk

You may have seen recent news reports about our 2023-2026 General Rate Case and the cost of our 10,000-Mile Undergrounding Program. 

The undergrounding program is a crucial part of our wildfire mitigation efforts, which have already reduced risk from our equipment by 90%. Through undergrounding and other layers of protection, we expect to achieve 94% wildfire risk reduction in 2023. 

Unfortunately, recent reports make incorrect claims that substantially overstate the amount of our rate request and the cost of our undergrounding program. They also do not tell the complete story of how undergrounding reduces wildfire risk for our customers and communities. 

PG&E's current General Rate Case application, which accounts for system investments and rates from 2023 to 2026, includes a request to fund 2,100 miles of undergrounding, among many other wildfire-mitigation measures. If the California Public Utilities Commission approves our entire proposal — which includes funding for other key safety and risk mitigation programs for our gas distribution, transmission, and storage systems; hydroelectric safety and risk mitigation activities; and other electric distribution wildfire and non-wildfire safety and reliability programs—the monthly bill for a typical residential combined gas and electric customer not enrolled in any of our assistance programs would increase by $31.62 a month compared to January 2022. 

Claims that monthly bills would increase by more than this are incorrect, as are claims about how much our undergrounding program will cost in its entirety — particularly as we continue to find new efficiencies that are already reducing our costs every year. 

Undergrounding electric distribution lines in high fire-risk areas is the most effective long-term solution for keeping customers and communities safe amid increased wildfire risk and longer wildfire seasons across the Western United States. 

“We strongly stand behind undergrounding as an important tool to reduce wildfire risk,” said Carla Peterman, PG&E executive vice president of Corporate Affairs. “Undergrounded wires are resilient to wildfires and more cost-effective for our communities in the long term. The public and legislature have made it clear they support undergrounding powerlines and want us to make the investments to reduce risk long-term.” 

Undergrounding essentially eliminates wildfire ignition risk from those lines and helps reduce long-term operations and maintenance costs. It reduces the need over time for other wildfire mitigation activities such as trimming and removing trees or initiating safety-related outages. Undergrounding also reduces weather-related damage to overhead powerlines, which means improved reliability and long-term resiliency. 

We deploy covered conductor — powerline covered with insulation that protects against contact with trees, tree limbs and other objects — where it makes sense, but it’s important to note that covered conductor is less than 65% effective by itself at reducing wildfire risk on a specific circuit. While the addition of Public Safety Power Shutoffs increases covered conductors’ effectiveness at preventing wildfires to about 95 percent, we realize that safety shutoffs affect reliability for customers and, as a result, are not the best long-term solution to wildfire risk. 

That is why our Community Wildfire Safety Program continues to rely on multiple layers of protection to keep customers and communities safe in the short and mid-term.  

Ensuring our system is safe, reliable and affordable requires a combination of tools, whether it’s installing weather stations and high-definition cameras, implementing safety-related power shutoffs, conducting vegetation management or hardening our system. 

As we continue our multiyear program to underground lines in the highest-risk areas and build long-term system resiliency, we continue to rely on multiple layers of protection to keep customers and communities safe in the short and mid-term. 

To identify the highest-risk powerlines, we use advanced, machine learning-based risk modeling and technology leveraged by Cal Fire and other fire-safety experts. Those technologies account for the type and condition of equipment, terrain and vegetation. Once a powerline is identified for risk mitigation, we determine the appropriate risk-reduction solution. 

Additional layers of protection include:  

• Inspecting electric equipment regularly to ensure it is operating safely. 
• Conducting vegetation management, including removing more than three million trees, to ensure trees are a safe distance from powerlines.
• Strengthening more than 1,300 miles of overhead powerlines and equipment, including stronger poles and covered conductor.
• Installing 1,400 weather stations and more than 600 high-definition cameras to help us better predict wildfire risk and monitor and respond to wildfires and severe weather. 
• Installing 1,300 sectionalizing devices on the powerlines to allow us to better target safety-related power shutoffs during periods of extreme weather and high wildfire risk. 
• Installing Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings (EPSS) on all 44,000 miles of electric distribution lines in and around high fire-risk areas to automatically shut off power within one-tenth of a second if a wildfire hazard is detected when risk is high. 
• Utilizing Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) during high winds as a last resort. 

As we reduce wildfire risk across our system, we are also laser-focused on reducing costs for our customers and communities. We continue to apply new construction methodologies, design standards, materials and other measures to underground lines as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. 

PG&E has already realized efficiencies in recent undergrounding projects that have reduced the average cost per mile in certain areas. We anticipate the undergrounding cost per mile will continue to decrease as the scale of the project increases, from approximately $3.3 million per mile in 2022 to approximately $2.8 million per mile in 2026. 

To reduce costs, we are: 

• Improving work processes, such as bundling similar work projects to reduce disruption to customers and working with vendors and contractors on cost-saving opportunities.
• Using a wider variety of construction equipment to more efficiently dig trenches, excavate through rock and bury lines.
• Deploying new tools and technologies to more efficiently manage and dispose of the significant amount of dirt that results from undergrounding projects.
• Updating design standards, such as cable length, trench depth and number of boxes and transformers needed.

PG&E’s wildfire safety and undergrounding efforts are making our system safer and more resilient and positioning us to better meet the changing energy needs of our customers and California’s economy.  

Click here to see our undergrounding program in action.