Tag: Pacific Gas & Electric

March 31, 2021

Utility reliance on diesel generation to power communities during wildfire-related power shut-offs has been an area of concern for regulators for a while now. PG&E deployed six such shut-offs last year and in January, Senior Vice President and Chief Risk […]

March 24, 2021

As this year’s Super Bowl viewers learned, parts of Europe are well-ahead of the U.S. in electric vehicle adoption. Energy providers there have developed an array of services to help business customers make the switch to electric, with large utility […]

March 10, 2021

“Disappointing.” That’s how a range of clean energy advocates and demand response providers are describing the California Public Utilities Commission’s latest plan to prevent a repeat of the state’s August 2020 rolling blackouts this coming summer. The proposed decision (PDF) […]

December 10, 2020

California regulators and utilities want to build microgrids for communities most at threat from the state’s increasingly deadly wildfires, and the widespread public safety power shutoff (PSPS) grid outages meant to prevent them. But despite policies to fund and enable […]

July 16, 2020

PG&E emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 1, after committing to a $25.5 billion payout to resolve liabilities stemming from a series of wildfires caused by its power lines between 2015 and 2018. But experts have noted that it still […]

July 6, 2020

“This is an important milestone, but our work is far from over. Our emergence from Chapter 11 marks just the beginning of PG&E’s next era — as a fundamentally improved company and the safe, reliable utility that our customers, communities […]

June 12, 2020

Residential solar installers are gearing up for a surge of demand for battery storage products as the critical California market swings from a COVID-19 shutdown straight into wildfire season. Storage has become increasingly central to the business models of home […]

June 2, 2020

PG&E’s broader strategy to reduce the impacts of its shut-offs includes three programs: upgrading certain substations so they can operate as islands when transmission lines are de-energized, providing technical and financial support to communities that want to deploy microgrids, and […]

May 6, 2020

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric may need to rely even more heavily on forced blackouts this year, to prevent its grid from starting more deadly wildfires like the ones that drove it into bankruptcy. PG&E’s wildfire mitigation work appears […]

April 21, 2020

California regulators have proposed conditions for Pacific Gas & Electric to win state approval to exit bankruptcy and access a state wildfire insurance fund seen as critical for its future financial stability. Among those demands: PG&E must subject itself to […]

March 20, 2020

The CPUC last year opened a proceeding to investigate a series of alleged violations that PG&E committed in relation to the 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires, ranging from failing to trim trees around its power lines to inadequately inspecting […]

March 17, 2020

Pacific Gas & Electric on Monday won court approval for its $23 billion plan to emerge from bankruptcy by midsummer, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to drop his opposition to it in the face of plunging stock markets and […]

January 8, 2020

PG&E’s sweeping public safety power shut-off program provoked widespread criticism from lawmakers, regulators and customers in 2019, after millions of Californians were left without electricity for days. But the utility, which has six months to resolve its wildfire liabilities and […]

January 2, 2020

PG&E’s initial general rate case application requested a nearly $1.1 billion increase over its $8.5 billion revenue for 2019, more than half of which was to fund wildfire mitigation measures, as required in Assembly Bill 1054, passed by the California […]

December 20, 2019

PG&E’s service territory is uniquely exposed to climate impacts because of its geography and vegetation, Michael Colvin, director of California energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, told Utility Dive. But “there are definitely things that the utility could have done […]

December 4, 2019

The CPUC’s proposed decision maintains the utilities’ test-year 2020 ROE at 2018 values: 10.3% for Southern California Edison, down from the requested 11.45%; 10.25% for PG&E, down from the 12% it applied for; and 10.2% for SDG&E, compared to the […]

November 21, 2019

Fall earnings season brought a barrage of new data on the performance of rooftop solar installers, since all the large national players are publicly traded. For one thing, the national residential solar company is very much alive, contrary to fears […]

October 28, 2019

PG&E employees were out in force over the weekend and will resume surveying the utility’s system at sunrise this morning, in the wake of high-wind conditions that saw gusts as high as 102 mph. Ultimately, 965,000 customers were caught up […]

October 15, 2019

California officials are not happy about Pacific Gas & Electric’s handling of its massive fire-prevention power outage last week. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state regulators on Monday demanded that PG&E address the communications and technology breakdowns that marred its response […]

May 9, 2019

PG&E announced a sweeping overhaul of its leadership in early April, and now regulators want to make sure those brought on board match up with the NorthStar recommendations PG&E agreed to adopt. The commission will examine whether PG&E’s appointment of […]