PG&E Expands Contract with Planet to use
Satellite Data to Complement Vegetation Management Work
OAKLAND,
Calif., April 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Preventing
ignitions that can cause catastrophic wildfires requires focus,
vigilance and the integration of ever-evolving technology. And as
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) continues to make
progress – including what the Company has calculated to be a 72%
reduction of ignitions in high fire-risk areas in 2023 compared to
the three-year average – satellite technology plays an increasing
role.
That's true with weather-forecasting models and it's true with
vegetation management, how a utility with approximately
70,000-square-mile service area in Northern and Central California works to keep millions of
trees and limbs away from powerlines.
One example is PG&E's partnership with Planet Labs PBC
(NYSE: PL), a San Francisco-based
provider of daily data and insights about Earth. PG&E leverages
Planet's satellite-derived data on vegetation including canopy
height, cover and proximity to electric-system infrastructure to
prioritize the mitigation of vegetation associated risks. The
companies recently expanded their work together with a year-long
contract that will give PG&E access to weekly Basemaps from
Planet, to be used alongside the vegetation data already being
leveraged.
"Planet's tree data plays an important role as we analyze
conditions and changes across our service area," said Andy Abranches, PG&E's senior director for
Wildfire Preparedness and Operations. "We've used it to improve our
data set of tree density around powerlines, and it has been
beneficial as we've studied which trees in which locations caused
outages during the winter storms last year and this year."
Going forward, Abranches said, data showing which trees have the
potential to strike powerlines is being added to the next version
of PG&E's own vegetation management risk-modeling.
"This data provides a more comprehensive layer of information,
highlighting the relative vegetation situation and condition within
designated areas. We're currently proving the concept and assessing
the potential benefits of machine-learning-based tree species
identification and dead or dying trees detection models," he
said.
Since 2019, PG&E has used data from Salo Sciences,
acquired by Planet in 2023, as a feeder data set into its
wildfire risk models. And, since 2023, PG&E has incorporated
two additional uses for Planet data: measurements of Canopy Density
as the thickness of a tree's canopy can forecast how much material
might strike a powerline, and Tree Mortality which can identify
areas of dead trees, which pose a considerable risk to electric
infrastructure and may indicate areas of high pest infestation and
drought impacts.
Planet's proprietary Vegetation Encroachment Planetary Variable
combines multiple data sources together to deliver analysis-ready
data on vegetation canopy height and cover, potential strike tree
locations and dead tree cover. With that information, PG&E can
evaluate areas with high potential for vegetation-driven outages
and ignitions. The innovative technology helps PG&E optimize
their operations and ensure workers are spending their valuable
time investigating and fixing high-risk areas first, helping to
reduce the probability of power outages and wildfire ignition from
their electric grid assets.
"It's a huge undertaking to manually observe and de-risk the
over 70,000 square miles that PG&E has under management in
California," said Will Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Planet.
"Planet's satellite data and artificial intelligence supports broad
area management to help reduce the risk of wildfires. We're excited
to be partners in this effort."
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric
utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square
miles in Northern and Central
California. For more information, visit pge.com and
pge.com/news.
About Planet
Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery
and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image
the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and
actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet
designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet
of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data,
advanced insights, and software solutions to over 950 customers,
comprising the world's leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence,
education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling
users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite
imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation listed on the New
York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and
follow us on Twitter.
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SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company