Transmission Tales: PG&E Underground, Texas Transmission Autarky, State Interconnection Rules

San Francisco’s Pacific Gas & Electric – devastated by recent wildfires – is looking to bury some 10,000 miles of electric transmission lines over the next decade in order to prevent its often elderly overhead equipment from starting fires, at a cost of $15 billion to $30 billion, according to NBC Bay Area News. The giant utility, the largest in the state, announced that goal last year, after the 2018 Paradise fire claimed some 80 lives and pushed PG&E in 2019 into its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding in 20 years.

This year, PG&E is looking to bury some 350 miles of transmission and aiming for 2,000 miles placed underground by the end of 2026. According to the company, by October 10 the utility had energized 137 miles of the 350-mile target. “Our team has learned and accomplished so much in the past two and a half years since we announced our 10,000-mile Undergrounding Program,” said Peter Kenny, PG&E’s senior vice president of major infrastructure delivery, which includes undergrounding.

But there is a significant obstacle to the company’s undergrounding goals: the California Public Utilities Commission. PG&E has proposed a four-year budget for the undergrounding project of about $6 billion, or $3.40 per month for the average bill.

That’s too much for the state utility regulators and a powerful local consumer group, The Utility Reform Network. TURN says burying power lines is a “very expensive way to prevent wildfires.” TURN notes that PG&E is “inherently incentivized to undertake more expensive infrastructure projects such as undergrounding. This is how the utility makes money, not by selling electricity or gas.”