Burying lines in high-risk areas improves reliability amid rising wildfire risks and extreme weather, PG&E’s Singh said. Though it’s pricier up front, it eliminates the yearly expense of trimming trees and vegetation, which makes it a better, long-run value for customers, he said.
“Underground is a no-brainer when you look at it from that lens,” Singh said.
But the high cost and the time it takes to do the work has left some skeptical. The company has buried 800 miles of wires underground since 2021, and plans to bury more than 1,600 by the end of 2026. It aims to get the cost per mile down to $2.8 million by the end of 2026 from $3 million at the end of 2023.
Michael Campbell, assistant deputy director of energy for the public advocates office, a state entity that represents utility customers, said PG&E should consider other means of preventing wildfire, like insulated wires, otherwise known as “covered conductors.” This can be deployed more quickly and at a lower cost, he said, and is effective when combined with operational techniques like fast trip settings and power safety shutoffs.
“In some areas, (burying power lines) really is the correct approach to minimize risk. But it’s also very slow and very expensive, and so there’s a need to address safety in as many miles as quickly as possible, to reduce overall risk,” Campbell said.
The utilities commission has taken a proof-of-concept approach: The commission scaled back PG&E’s plan to bury 2,000 miles through 2026 to 1,230. The commission approved installing covered conductors, or insulated power lines, over 778 miles.
Lynch is skeptical of utilities and their big projects because they can profit from them, and Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, says too much spending is going unchecked.
The sense of urgency following fires paved the way for the multi-billion surge in spending. The commission authorized PG&E, for instance, to spend $4.66 billion on wildfire costs from 2020 through 2022, but the company ultimately spent $11.7 billion and is seeking payment through utility bills, according to The Utility Reform Network.
Photo, left: PG&E employees and contractors stand next to a trench that was dug in Placer County so that electric cables can be buried to prevent wildfires. Burying lines costs PG&E ratepayers between $3 million and $4 million per mile. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters
Audits of nearly $2.5 billion in 2019 and 2020 wildfire spending found some costs from PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E may already have been covered by previously approved rates, or more documentation was needed to confirm they had not been covered.
The utilities challenged many of the findings, saying they didn’t plan to claim some of the costs, and disputed the auditor’s conclusions as well as some of their calculations. In interviews with CalMatters, representatives for all three utilities said the process in place to oversee wildfire spending at the utilities commission was robust and thorough.
Geraghty, of SDG&E, said the process is transparent, with public comment periods and hearings. Regarding critics who say wildfire prevention should be cheaper and faster, “every one of them had that voice, had that say, had that transparency through this entire process,” he said.
Some expenses, such as operating costs, have an immediate impact on how much people pay in their bills. But other costs, such as long-term investments in insulating or burying power lines, are stretched out over years, meaning they add to bills for decades to come.
Over time, these capital costs are growing due to factors like depreciation and the returns utilities are allowed to generate. This creates a compounding effect, meaning wildfire-related capital costs will take up an increasing share of what California customers are charged in the future.
Feeling the pinch in Oakland, the fear near Malibu
The burden of the rising bills is hitting many Californians hard. Roshonda Wilson, of Oakland, couldn’t afford to pay her power bill even though she said she watches television only after sunset, refrains from running unnecessary appliances and is hyper-aware of every energy-consuming action in her household. At one point PG&E turned her power off this year. “I couldn’t catch up,” she said.
On the other hand, Moss — who has weathered not just the trauma of losing her home near Malibu but also the difficult process of rebuilding — says the expensive wildfire prevention work is critical to prevent more tragedies.
“Even though (burying power lines) is costly and time-consuming, the cost and time of not doing it is starting to seem more devastating to a broader swath of people,” Moss said.
Nevertheless, the rate hikes have alarmed climate activists who fear rising power bills in California may trigger a backlash against the state’s effort to switch to renewable energy, and influence other states, too.
“The state, we fear, will start to lose the political will to keep pushing on,” said Mohit Chhabra, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The problem with that is not that California will be a few years late — we can handle that. But the impact on all the other states who are looking at California.”
Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett and Miguel Gutierrez Jr. contributed to this report.
This story was corrected on Dec. 3 to say that Californians pay the highest electric rates, not bills. Average bills in California are lower than in other states, but its rates per unit used are the highest except for Hawaii.
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