PG&E announced on Tuesday that the company has turned on its enhanced powerline safety settings across all high fire-risk areas.
The technology was rolled out in 2021 to significantly reduce ignitions that can lead to catastrophic wildfires, company officials said.
In the North State, 175 circuits in eight counties are EPSS-enabled, including 7 in Colusa County. These circuits are generally in foothill areas and all are in high-fire threat areas.
The safety settings turn off power within one-tenth of a second when a fault, such as a tree limb coming into contact with a powerline, is detected. Last year, on 170 circuits with safety settings enabled, there was an 80% reduction in CPUC-reportable ignitions in High Fire Threat Districts that could result in a wildfire, compared to the prior three-year average.
Based on EPSS’s success in 2021 as a proven wildfire prevention technology, PG&E has expanded the program to more than 1,000 circuits encompassing more than 25,000 distribution line miles in high fire-risk areas this year as well as approximately 18,000 line miles in adjacent portions of the system.
PG&E offers a new tool on its website, where customers can input their address and see if the safety settings are currently enabled on the circuit serving their home or business. It’s available at pge.com/outages.
The EPSS now protects approximately 3 million people, or more than 1 million customers, who live in high fire-risk areas within the company’s service area, is just one component of PG&E’s comprehensive Community Wildfire Safety Program, which includes putting 10,000 miles of power lines underground, creating microgrids to keep key community facilities energized during outages, and an ever-growing number of situational awareness tools such as weather stations and high-definition cameras. ■