PG&E’s plan to bury power lines is expensive. There is another way to cut fire risk | Opinion

Putting high-voltage electrical lines underground, rather than running them overhead atop power poles, is one way to prevent devastating wildfires.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. would know. The utility’s equipment sparked a series of deadly wildfires in Northern California that scorched hundreds of thousands of acres, cost hundreds of millions in firefighting expenses and caused billions of dollars in damage. The 2018 Camp Fire was especially devastating; it destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.

Now, after years of opposing it, PG&E is seeking approval from the California Public Utilities Commission to charge customers for the continuing work to bury lines. It is a big request.

The investor-owned company wants to hike its revenues to $15.4 billion in 2023, or $3.2 billion more than it was approved for in 2022 — a 26% increase.

PG&E’s request is too expensive, will take too long and could disturb more ground than the lines it has in place.

There is an alternative widely considered to be effective: Insulating, or hardening, lines with fire-resistant material. That approach has already been successfully used by another utility, Southern California Edison.

‘We have to re-earn trust’

To reduce risk in fire-prone areas, PG&E says it needs $5.9 billion to underground 2,000 miles of lines from now through 2026. Nearly that much could be saved from not having to cut back trees, grass and brush from poles and lines, the company said.

In a virtual meeting with McClatchy California editorial boards, PG&E Chief Executive Officer Patti Poppe said her company knows “we have to re-earn the trust of the people of California.”

But the company won’t achieve that by raising rates that already are unaffordable for many customers.

While recognizing the value of undergrounding power lines, the PUC believes insulating electrical conductors and lines can achieve sufficient wildfire risk reduction at less cost.

As a result, the PUC’s initial decision is to deny PG&E’s request. It directed PG&E to scale back undergrounding and instead do more power-line hardening. In response, Poppe said the PUC is “making shortsighted and narrow decisions for how to address the highest wildfire risk circuits.”

Under the PUC’s proposed decision, PG&E would be allowed to hike revenues by $13.8 billion, a 13% increase.

There is also an alternate proposal that would allow the utility to receive $13.3 billion in revenues, a 9% increase.

In the first scenario, monthly bills for typical customers would go up $31 a month (includes electric and gas). In the second option, monthly bills would rise by $25 (for electric and gas).

In the view of McClatchy California opinion editorial boards, the alternate proposed decision makes the most sense. It directs PG&E to bury 973 miles of power lines and harden 1,027 miles, reaching a total of 2,000 miles. It also carries the least economic impact on PG&E’s 16 million customers in Northern and Central California, who already pay some of the highest gas and electricity rates in the nation.

The matter will be taken up when the PUC meets on Nov. 2.

PG&E’s view

PG&E has more than 100,000 miles of power lines, but wants to underground a total of 10,000 miles in the areas with highest fire potential.

Poppe said covering primary power lines with fire-resistant insulation does work in the right places. PG&E already has 1,000 miles of hardened line. But, she said, that technique reduces fire risk by just 65% in the most fire-prone areas. By contrast, burying lines reduces the fire risk by 98%, she said.

PG&E’s undergrounding request amounts to $3.40 on the average customer’s monthly bill, Poppe added, but that number comes directly from PG&E and not any outside studies.

“It is dangerous to trade a 98% risk reduction for a 65% risk reduction to save $3.40 a month,” she said.

In either undergrounding or hardening scenarios, the poles that hold power lines would remain. That’s because they also carry other types of lines, like telecommunications.

Critics of proposal

As occurs with any rate proposal put forth by PG&E, there are many critics of the utility’s latest plans.

Among them is Oakland-based TURN, The Utility Reform Network. It favors the power-line hardening approach taken by Edison, saying that technique offers sufficient safety at much less expense.

Mark Toney, TURN’s executive director, told McClatchy California opinion editors that Edison has been able to harden power lines for about $800,000 a mile. PG&E’s undergrounding plan would cost $3 million to $4 million per mile, he said. Similar estimates are included in the PUC’s proposed decision.

There are other significant advantages with line hardening:

▪ PG&E would be able to conduct the work without having to secure rights-of-way and other approvals.

▪ Since PG&E would follow existing power-line routes, it would not need environmental reviews. With burying, should PG&E encounter an unexpected obstacle and need to burrow around it, added environmental review would be needed, and that would cause delays.

Toney said Edison began line hardening in 2020, and has finished 5,000 miles. It will go over 7,000 miles in another year or so. By contrast, PG&E says it needs four years to underground 2,000 miles. At that rate, it will take 20 years to reach the 10,000-mile goal.

Edison’s line hardening has included the installation of circuit breakers that automatically shut off any line that falls to the ground.

An expert on power and energy systems, University of Washington Professor Daniel Kirschen, said PG&E earns a guaranteed rate of return on capital improvements.

“Undergrounding … costs a lot of money. It’s a large investment. So that would increase the revenue that the utilities collect,” Kirschen told CNBC.

Another critic, April Rose Maurath Sommer, executive and legal director of the Wild Tree Foundation, has said that PG&E has struggled to keep a workforce for vegetation clearing work. She questions if the same problem would hinder undergrounding. PG&E itself noted the workforce challenge in a filing in June with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Line hardening best

Burying power lines has merit, given how wildfires have been sparked by electrical equipment in wildlands dried out by California’s punishing droughts.

But in this time of stubborn inflation and California’s uniquely high gas and housing costs, limiting expenses to ratepayers must also be a top consideration of the commission.

The PUC is well aware of fire dangers. It believes enough protection can be achieved by hardening the majority of PG&E’s lines.

The PUC should reject Pacific Gas and Electric’s request and follow one of the two proposed decisions before it.

This editorial represents the views of the opinion editorial boards at The Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee, Merced Sun-Star and The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.