Recent wildfires in Northern California have resulted in utility companies like Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) voluntarily shutting off power for thousands of customers. As wildfires in the area continue to become more formidable year after year, electric power outages are likely to become increasingly rampant in the foreseeable future. That’s why NorCal homeowners are turning their attention to solar power and home battery storage.
What’s the Cause of Increased PG&E Outages in Northern California?
PG&E, which is one of the most prominent utility companies in the US, has a bad relationship with wildfires. This is particularly the case in high fire-threat regions like Northern California.
The company manages thousands of miles of overhead lines that transmit electricity from generating stations to their customers’ homes. Naturally, these lines must cut through Northern California’s wooded areas, where they run the risk of wildfire ignitions. That’s because high-voltage transmission wires can be hazardously close to drought-affected trees if they are not routinely trimmed.
Sometimes high winds often received in the region during the wildfire season can push drought-primed trees closer to the transmission lines. The result is almost always an ugly wildfire that ends up causing billions of dollars in damage and adverse environmental impact.
PG&E has faced many such incidents, with the Wall Street Journal noting that the utility firm was responsible for over 1,500 wildfires in just three years leading up to 2017. This trend has continued since then, with PG&E pleading guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in the 2018 deadly Camp Fire. What’s more, every of these wildfire cases had the potential to cause power outages.
In response, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has made it mandatory for electricity companies to put in place measures to prevent transmission lines from causing wildfires.
On its part, PG&E has embraced the Community Wildfire Safety Program’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). That means the electricity utility company can purposely shut off electricity to your home in a bid to proactively manage the risk of wildfires.
For NorCal homeowners, that’s bittersweet news because PG&E can initiate power outages to thousands of households for days at a time, and this strategy is poised to continue for the foreseeable future.
When Did PG&E Outages Take Place?
In 2019, the PG&E called a staggering 7 major power outages on the following dates:
June 7-9, affecting 22,000 customers
September 25-27, impacting 49,000 customers
October 5-6, with 11,300 customers affected
October 9-12, affecting a whopping 732,348 customers!
October 23-25, impacted around 177,000 customers
October 26 & 29, another mammoth outage affecting 941,000 customers
November 20-21, impacting 49,000 customers
In 2020, the company has so far called five major PSPS outages. The latest was enforced between October 25 & 28, and it affected more than 345,470 customers.
Protect Your Home and Community with Home Battery Storage
Clearly, PG&E outages are here to stay. In fact, the company’s CEO informed the regulators in 2019 that PG&E expects these shutoffs to continue for the next 10 years or so. Lucky for you, there’s a viable solution for NorCal homeowners to protect their homes against PG&E outages: installing solar power and home battery storage.
To learn more about how solar power and home battery storage can help protect the environment and your home, download our free brochure, “Living with Solar” today! And if you’re ready to take the next step, contact us today and one of our Energy Coordinators will be happy to answer your questions.
