California has been dealing with worsening wildfires as the years progress, and 2021 has been no exception. Aside from COVID ravaging the state, with global temperatures rising – causing fires, home losses and major drought – the state is constantly looking for ways to lessen these particular issues, especially the ravaging fires.
In order to help stop the flare of the California wildfires, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has recently announced that it will begin a large-scale initiative to submerge at least 10,000-miles of power lines beneath the ground.
Aside from how undergrounding power lines lessens the risk of wildfires, it also benefits users by lowering the need for the Public Safety Power Shutoffs. These usually occur during the dryer seasons, when the company is forced to turn off the power as a last resort to lessen the chance of setting of a wildfire when live power lines come into contact with very dry vegetation.
In addition, this huge endeavor also eases the need for other vegetation management efforts, therefore leaving a higher number of trees in the state untouched.
According to CEO of PG&E in a statement, Patti Poppe, she shared, “We have taken a stand that catastrophic wildfires shall stop. We will gladly partner with policymakers and state and local leaders to map a path we can all believe in.”
Working Towards Moving Underground
Pacific Gas and Electric Company has been America’s biggest natural gas and electric utility supplier since the mid 1800s. And across 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California alone, PG&E serves at least 16 million people.
Undergrounding was not as popular before, only being done in the past depending on particular, case-by-case reasons. And most of these reasons for implementing them was not because of hoping to reduce the risk of wildfires.
After the October 2017 Northern California wildfires and the 2018 Camp Fire that left major destruction in their wake, PG&E decided to look into putting the overhead power lines into the ground as a safety measure against wildfires. At the same time, they looked into the costs of such a major endeavor, getting a better understanding of the cost requirements linked to undergrounding ‘for system hardening purposes.’
Then in 2019, PG&E also announced that in the Town of Paradise, they would rebuild all their power lines underground in an effort to help the area recover from the devastation caused by Camp Fire. Meanwhile, PG&E also decided to rebuild their power lines underground after the 2020 Complex Fire that occurred in Butte County as well.
Because of the company’s rebuilding efforts and demonstration projects that are going on, they have also been able to fine-tune and streamline the cost requirements and construction needs that are associated with the undergrounding projects, which has paved the way for a quicker expansion of these undergrounding projects.
Poppe also shared, “Ten thousand miles of [buried] line is a trip halfway around the planet, 10,000 miles of line is a trip from Chico to L.A. 11 times and back. We will partner with the best and the brightest to find the best solutions to make this audacious goal come to life.”
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