PG&E Makes Thousands of Repairs After Inspections
July 15 2019 - 10:48PM
Dow Jones News
By Katherine Blunt and Russell Gold
PG&E Corp. said it is working to repair nearly 10,000
problems it discovered throughout its electrical system as it steps
up efforts to prevent its equipment from sparking more
wildfires.
The company posted to its website the results of an accelerated
inspection process that began late last year. The company said it
discovered more than 1,000 immediate safety risks and has repaired
nearly all of them, as well as thousands of other lower-priority
ones. But it is still working through more than 3,700 repairs as
California's wildfire season proceeds.
The problems include damaged transmission towers, broken
hardware on local distribution poles and leaking transformers in
its substations. The company didn't give details on the electric
lines and substations in need of work but said it plans to complete
most of its high-priority repairs within about three months.
PG&E began enhanced inspections late last year after the
Caribou-Palermo transmission line started a wildfire that killed 85
people and destroyed the town of Paradise in November. It shared
the inspection results with the California Public Utilities
Commission last month and pledged to do more to make its system
safer.
The San Francisco-based utility, which serves 16 million people,
said that the information published Monday reflects work completed
as of May 31 and will be updated regularly.
"As part of its commitment to be open and transparent, PG&E
has made available on its website additional, community-specific
information about accelerated and enhanced safety inspections and
repairs," the company said.
Many of the remaining problems are concentrated in rural
counties in Northern California, where wildfire risk is elevated.
In Butte County, where the November Camp Fire broke out, PG&E
said it has made 253 repairs and is still working to address 244
others.
PG&E equipment in more-populated counties near San
Francisco, including Sonoma, Marin and Santa Cruz, is also in need
of numerous repairs.
A Wall Street Journal investigation found that PG&E knew for
years that its transmission lines could fail and spark fires, yet
the company repeatedly delayed maintenance and repair work. Much of
PG&E's electrical grid was first built a century ago, and some
of its transmission towers have never been replaced.
State investigators tied PG&E's equipment to 19 major
wildfires in 2017 and 2018. The company sought bankruptcy
protection in January, citing more than $30 billion in potential
liability costs.
The inspections, which involved 50,000 transmission towers,
700,000 distribution poles and 222 substations connecting thousands
of miles of wire, were part of PG&E's latest
wildfire-mitigation plan, which involves trimming hundreds of
thousands of trees away from its power lines and installing
technology to monitor fire risk throughout its electric system. The
company anticipates the improvements to cost as much as $2.3
billion.
PG&E first disclosed some of the findings of its enhanced
inspections last month after it shared the results with state
regulators. The company also announced it had decided to
de-energize the Caribou-Palermo transmission line permanently after
discovering extensive safety problems.
Write to Katherine Blunt at Katherine.Blunt@wsj.com and Russell
Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 15, 2019 22:33 ET (02:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
PG&E (NYSE:PCG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
PG&E (NYSE:PCG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024