Pacific Gas and Electric is going underground to prevent wildfires. The move to bury 10,000 miles of power lines also means customers of the nation's largest utility may see rising rates.
Experts have recommended that utilities bury their power lines for years. Underground power lines are not at risk of hitting each other or trees on windy days. When power lines do hit each other or trees, it can spark wildfires.
Cal Fire determined a spark from PG&E’s electrical transmission lines was the likely cause of the deadly 2018 Camp Fire. The fire was deemed the deadliest in California's history, destroying much of the town of Paradise and killing 86 people.
Patti Poppe, the company’s chief executive officer, announced the plan just days after the utility notified regulators that a tree falling onto its equipment may have sparked the Dixie Fire.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Poppe said PG&E leaders were originally going to announce the plan to bury power lines “in a couple months, when we had a little more meat on the bones.” However, executives decided “we couldn’t wait, particularly given the proximity to the Dixie Fire, and the emotional toll it has on all of us.”
No exact timeline was announced, but PG&E said burying the lines will take several years. Currently, California is experiencing a record number of wildfires due to extremely dry conditions.
The 10,000 miles of power lines that PG&E plan to bury is only about 10 percent of the utility’s system.
Steve Weissman, creator & former director of the Energy Law Program at UC Berkeley Law School, told KNX In Depth on Thursday that the project was small for PG&E, but still was large by conventional standards.
“They have over 100,000 miles of just of the smaller wires and poles,” Weissman said. "It’s still a very massive undertaking. It certainly fits in the category of what people call a ‘mega-project,’ and those are always every challenging to bring home.”
The projected cost of burying 10 percent of the network is anywhere from $15 to $30 billion. Despite the high cost, Poppe told reporters at the Chico press conference, "It's too expensive not to do it. Lives are on the line."
Company officials believe they can do it for the lower end of the cost spectrum, but it will be utility customers who will pay for it with higher prices.
“Ultimately it comes home to roost for the ratepayers because the more the liabilities the shareholders take on, the more expensive it will be for them to borrow money,” Weissman said. “That cost gets passed on to the ratepayers as well.”
PG&E customers pay among the highest rates in the country.