PG&E Undergrounds Wires To Reduce Shutoff Impacts For 11K In SoCo

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Pacific Gas and Electric Company crews are placing power lines underground in Santa Rosa to help prevent some 11,000 customers from being impacted by a Public Safety Power Shutoff during severe weather conditions, the utility company said this week.

High winds can cause tree branches and debris to contact energized electric lines, damage electrical equipment and cause a wildfire. As a result, PG&E may need to turn off power for public safely, or a PSPS.

"This is a large targeted undergrounding job to help reduce the impacts of PSPS events on our customers in Sonoma County," said Brad Koelling, manager of PG&E's Grid Design and System Hardening. "By strategically placing power lines underground, PG&E eliminates the need for temporary generation, and the use of fossil fuels, to keep our customers energized. It’s a permanent wired solution that will keep the power on."

Undergrounding power lines is part of PG&E's overall efforts to evolve with California’s changing weather patterns, including the current drought conditions and warmer, drier days, the company said.

"We are looking at areas in Sonoma County where customers who are in non-high fire threat areas have been impacted by past PSPS events because the lines that serve them go through high fire-threat areas," said Joe Horak, the electric superintendent for PG&E's Sonoma Division. "We identified an area in Rincon Valley where we could place infrastructure underground that would make a great impact in reducing PSPS impacts before this wildfire season.

Construction started in April and upon completion, the project will keep the lights on for approximately 11,000 customers in Rincon Valley during future distribution-level PSPS events. These customers have been impacted by PSPS events in the past, the company said.

"We know losing power is a hardship and disrupts lives, especially for those with medical needs, those working from home and those engaged in distance learning," said Austin Sharp, senior manager for PG&E's Sonoma Division.

"We’d like to thank the County of Sonoma and City of Santa Rosa for working with us on permitting and approvals in these areas for the project," Sharp said. "We will be able to keep the power on for thousands of customers, including several schools within the Rincon Unified School District, who otherwise could have been impacted by PSPS events."

Other ways PG&E said it is working to reduce the number of customers impacted by shutoff events is by upgrading the electric grid by hardening power lines and poles and installing sectionalizing devices to narrow the scope of PSPS events so fewer customers are without power, according to Deanna Contreras, spokesperson for PG&E in the North Bay.

PG&E plans to install 29 such devices this year in Sonoma County, on top of the 89 installed last year, Contreras said.

Additional undergrounding projects to reduce impacts of PSPS events on customers are planned for other High Fire-Threat Districts (HFTD), as defined by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in PG&E’s service territory. The next such project in Sonoma County is anticipated to be in Sonoma Valley starting next year, Contreras said.

As for the ongoing Rincon Valley project, Contreras said customers may experience intermittent road or lane closures, traffic delays or construction noise and activity near PG&E’s substation on Harville Road.

PG&E will have traffic control, such as signage and flaggers, in place to allow pedestrians and drivers to move safely through work areas. Barring unforeseen circumstances and inclement weather, PG&E expects the project to be completed by the end of August.

Even though PG&E’s powerlines will be moved underground, some of the power poles in the area will remain in place to carry service lines that feed customer homes and telecommunications equipment.

"We still want our customers to prepare for possible PSPS events, no matter where they live, due to the changing weather patterns in California," Horak said. "Although undergrounding in these areas will allow for these lines to remain energized in most severe weather cases, there could be a case of such severe weather that it impacts transmission lines, the main power source coming into the area. Undergrounding will only prevent outages during distribution-level events."

For ways to prepare for a PSPS, go to Pge.com/psps. Community-based partners listed on this site, per county, work with PG&E to provide food replacement options, hotel stays and portable backup batteries for low-income customers with medical and independent living needs during PSPS events.