TC Business Council Hears Update On PG&E Undergrounding, Other Initiatives
Sonora, CA — Regional leaders from Pacific Gas and Electric gave a presentation, and took questions, from business leaders in Tuolumne County.
The monthly luncheon of the Tuolumne County Business Council was held Wednesday afternoon at the Mother Lode Job Training office on Mono Way. Around 25 were on hand to hear a presentation led by Nathan Alonzo, Government Relations Representative for PG&E, alongside several other officials with the company.
Alonzo noted that undergrounding of powerlines is the most effective way of reducing wildfire risk, but it is also the most expensive. He stated that PG&E completed 258 miles of undergrounding last year across its service area, with a goal of 1,600 by 2026.
The areas selected for the work are based on fire risk calculations.
Locally, there were three miles of undergrounding of lines in Tuolumne County last year (in Sonora around the hospital), two miles are planned to be done in 2025, and 17 miles are planned for 2026 (primarily around downtown Groveland).
A more cost-effective strategy to reduce wildfire risk is overhead hardening and putting in place steel poles. 46 spots were hardened in 2024 in the county (mainly around Twain Harte and Mi-Wuk Village), four more are planned this year, and six in 2026.
The presentation also touched on Planned Power Outages (which Tuolumne County has avoided in the past couple of years) and the now more prominent Emergency Power Safety Shutoffs which occur when sensors determine a line or other piece of infrastructure is threatened.
It was noted that Tuolumne County had 125 EPSS incidents in 2023 with an average outage lasting five hours. The number fell to 96 in 2024 with the average time reduced to two hours. The company is hopeful that the numbers will continue to decline as technology advances. They also praised how the actions have prevented potential fires.
Some of the business leaders raised concerns about a lack of communication between PG&E and its customers and the amount of time it takes new development projects to receive service. On the latter item, company officials indicated that COVID-related supply chain shortages severely backed up projects around 2021, but things are now back to normal. There were also procedural questions asked about how the company removes trees that pose hazards.
Alonzo also addressed the recent $2.4 billion in profit PG&E recently reported as a public company (on the back of a series of recent rate hikes). He indicated that it was important for the company to get back on a strong financial footing and be able to pay small dividends to shareholders, pointing out that much of the company’s stock is held by state employee and teacher pension funds. He expressed that PG&E is hoping to reduce existing rates later this year through avenues like renegotiated contracts, cost cuts, and requesting changes to state-mandated fees.
