“Some stakeholders, however, remain concerned about how effective the plans will be. One of the most cost-effective and efficient approaches to reducing wildfire risk is system hardening, said April Rose Maurath Sommer, executive and legal director of the Wild Tree Foundation. System hardening includes a combination of switching out bare conductors with covered conductors, installing stronger poles and undergrounding portions of power lines. In 2020, PG&E hardened 342 miles of powerlines. This year, however, the utility is aiming to complete 180.
‘What we would want to see is PG&E ramping up and doing more and more — instead, they actually are doing less,” Maurath Sommer said, adding that the utility’s plan to complete between 450 and 500 miles of system hardening per year by 2024 and after is “still a drop in the bucket.'”
-Utility Dive, California IOUs plan to spend $11B on wildfire prevention in 2021 and 2022 after record-breaking fire season (February 9, 2021) read more