Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

PG&E defends planned outages as 'last resort' tool to prevent wildfires

Utility Dive: PG&E has incurred more than $2 billion in costs, net of insurance recoveries, related to wildfires this year and faces billions more in potential liability, putting a premium on efforts to avert such disasters.

While the company's October actions drew some complaints, its new report defends the power shutoff as the right decision, though one to be used cautiously.

"Although we were able to leverage and successfully execute the PSPS process with zero safety incidents and no ignitions ... we continue to view PSPS as a tool of last resort among PG&E’s overall wildfire mitigation strategy," the utility said. "PG&E views this as an extreme measure that should be taken with great care."

Read article