PG&E moves power underground in plan to bury 10,000 miles

[Auggie]

Associated Press / June 16, 2022

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is working on an ambitious project to bury thousands of miles of power lines in an effort to prevent igniting fires with its equipment and avoid shutting down electricity during hot and windy weather.

PG&E announced last year that it planned to bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in the next decade at a projected cost of $15 billion to $30 billion. The announcement came just days after PG&E informed regulators that a 70-foot (23-meter) pine tree that toppled on one of its power lines ignited a major fire in Butte County, the same rural area about 145 miles (233 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco where another fire sparked by its equipment killed more than 80 people and destroyed thousands of homes in 2018.

Since 2017, the aging equipment of the nation’s largest utility has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people. In 2019, PG&E filed for bankruptcy after facing billions of dollars in wildfire fines and lawsuits.

SNIP

PG&E previously has buried power lines as systems are rebuilt in the wake of destructive wildfires, such as the massive blaze that wiped out most of the town of Paradise in 2018. This month, it started work on a plan to place 175 miles (280 kilometers) of power lines underground this year in central and Northern California, said Deanna Contreras, a PG&E spokeswoman.

MORE: https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-santa-rosa-fires-weather-77358c2777d810d1a23b4336062e665a

QUOTE from the link: According to Deanna Contreras, a PG&E spokeswoman, "burying power lines costs $3.75 million per mile. As we increase the line miles every year and we scale up, we expect those costs to come down to about $2.5 million a mile by the end of 2026.”

Better late than never. But it doesn't absolve PG&E from past crimes. Oh, BTW: the plan calls for ratepayers to finance the project through higher utility bills.

[lapfog_1]

1. doctor! doctor! It hurts when I do this!

Doctor: OK, don't do that.

Instead of long transmission lines and dangers of wild fires and cost associated with burying the power lines... put solar on every rooftop of every home and business and build small natural gas "neighborhood" peaker power plants (or very small nuclear plants) plus wind farms close to suburban and urban users. There is so much loss in sending electricity over miles of transmission lines...

The only problem with rooftop solar for PG&E is that there really isn't a need for a utility to be involved.

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. The utility is stll needed

Someone has to maintain that infrastructure, PG&E just needs to change their business model.

[wryter2000]

2. It's still worth it

Even if you don't live in a high fire zone, they can turn off your power for days if you're somehow on the same grid as a high fire zone. The loss of life and property from the fires is horrendous and will only get worse. The smoke in my area in Oakland from the fire near Napa killed one of my neighbors who had respiratory problems.

[BSdetect]

3. These "costs per mile" are ridiculous.

It's likely way overestimated to justify trying to impose $8 per kW PER MONTH for solar panels already installed.

In our case that would mean about $70 each month for producing energy we already paid for.

Time to stop PGE as they proved to be truly dangerous.

[Sympthsical]

5. Yeah, we just got solar this spring.

And they're just looking for ways to squeeze it.

Funny story. After the panels were installed and functional, we had to wait for PG&E to transition us. It was entirely at their discretion, and we were told within 30 days. The company had to choose when we could stop paying them.

It was not within 30 days.

Yeah. That was some phone calls.

[GregariousGroundhog]

7. Someone has to pay for the cost of maintaining transmission lines

Utilities have costs that can be roughly grouped into three buckets - generation, transmission, and corporate overhead costs. I don't know what those look like for PG&E, but at the utility I work for they are about 6 cents, 8 cents, and 2 cents per kW-h respectively.

The optics of charging a solar fee are terrible. Instead of charging 17 cents per kW-h, the fairest solution is probably for a utility to charge something like $50 a month for 100 amp service and $100 for 200 amp service plus 8 cents per kW-h. That way net metering accurately credits solar owner for avoided generation costs. People who install something like a Tesla PowerWall would also be incentivized because they would be able to downgrade from say 200 amp to 100 amp or from 100 amp to 60 amp.

[Auggie]

8. Transmission lines get really hot

From Popular Science:

... Wires hanging above aren’t ready for life underground without some modifications, the most important of which is insulation. Electricity wires are, by their nature, very warm, as they’re channeling currents to and fro. In the open air, this heat can dissipate, but deep in the soil it can’t. That’s why utilities wrapped their underground wires in plastic and surround them with a conduit like oil to keep things from overheating.

While that may sound simple—anyone with a backhoe could do it!—it’s not. Depending on the density of the local population and the terrain, undergrounding can cost billions of dollars.

https://www.popsci.com/why-dont-we-put-power-lines-underground/

[Sympthsical]

4. I'm just waiting for things to kick off this summer

The winter in NorCal was so incredibly dry. The hills may as well be covered in hay.

We've also been having an incredibly windy early summer. It's a little worse where I am, because I live in a valley - it's always crazy windy here. But it seems worse than usual. I made the mistake of leaving my cans out a little too long the other morning and had to go fetch them from the neighbor's driveway.

I'm just waiting for it to start going down.