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AVA NORGROVE, ANCHOR:
PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs were a much more frequent occurrence when they started about five years ago. This year, the company has only turned off power twice. NSPR’s Ken Devol has more on why.
KEN DEVOL, REPORTER:
The fewer power outages this year are due to more favorable weather and heavy precipitation last fall and winter, which delayed the onset of this year’s fire season. But favorable weather isn’t a given.
Due to that, PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno says the company has taken several measures to reduce the frequency and the footprints of shutoffs when they are needed.
MORENO: “That includes more sectionalizing devices along circuits so that we can better isolate customers and not include customers who don’t need to be isolated; hardening our grid using covered power lines in areas; and of course we’ve been doing undergrounding.”
He says PG&E has also installed more weather stations and high definition fire cameras, as well as something called microgrids in some small communities where PSPS events are likely. The microgrids allow the communities to generate their own electricity when the power is turned off.
MORENO: “We enabled these core business areas to be isolated, like their own power grids. And that means people who live in the surrounding community could come there and have fuel, restaurants, markets, critical services like fire departments and medical clinics.”
Moreno says Public Safety Power Shutoffs will continue as a measure of last resort during periods of high fire risk. But in the future, they may be better targeted and involve fewer customers.
