Pacific Gas & Electric is launching the first wave of a multibillion initiative to bury 10,000 miles of distribution lines in areas of high risk of wildfires in Northern and Central California.
Officials with the utility giant made the announcement last week of the first wave, which aims to place nearly 3,600 miles of powerlines underground. The estimated cost is nearly $4 million per mile, officials said.
The project is part of a wildfire mitigation plan to be submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission on Feb. 25.
Transmission wires have been blamed for starting many wildfires around the state in recent years, including the Dixie Fire that started in July 2021 and burned nearly a million acres and destroyed more than 1,400 structures before it was contained in late October.
Company officials said in November that the company would lose an estimated $1 billion from the fire and related lawsuits.
common sense solution – bury them.
Wait… you’re not talking about the officials are you?
Good one!
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Here comes a tacked on “mitigation fee” in addition to the 20 percent rate increase recently approved by the CPUC.
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Everyone be sure to call 811 before you dig!!
+1
Great point BigGame!
$4 million per mile is utterly ridiculous, can someone independently verify that?
It seems high but a lot of wire and casings will go into it. It not just digging a ditch. It has to be something that will stand time.
It is in fact 4 million dollars per mile. Its been repeated many times on our calls. There’s quite a bit involved from permits (city/state/CPUC), engineering design, project planning, construction, raw materials, mapping, etc. Costs have risen quite a bit in recent years due to the insane workload resulting in expensive contractors. And the kicker here is that all of the high wildfire areas are largely in extremely rugged and tough to access areas which often require the use of helicopters.
I’m glad this number is public. Maybe people will understand why we can’t just underground everything and eliminate wildfires.
In addition to the costs Ricardoh mentioned, there will be countless environmental impact fees, defense attorney fees after Sierra Club and every other enviro group out there sues to stop this. Also, consider this is intended for the mountainous/hilly/heavily forested regions, where it will not be easy to access. I wish they would put out itemized cost bases so the public can see the material costs, the planning costs, etc., so that where the waste will be captured, once the budget has to double (although since this is not the state, there may be a bit more fiscal “control”),
@Jim.
The fact that this number has been repeated multiple times doesn’t by itself make it true. Rather, it sounds like someone pulled a number out of their rear end and PG&E decided to stick to it.
Considering that CA PUC has never seen a PG&E rate hike proposal that it didn’t like, PG&E has exactly zero motivation to try and reduce the costs. So Jeff is absolutely right – before asking the ratepayers to pony up another $40 billion (on top of the second highest electricity rates in the US and rate hikes of 5%/year, no matter what), it would be prudent to share at least some details about these costs.
The actual number when they break ground on this project will at least double the $4 million per mile. I thought $4 million sounded too low.
If anyone has it put up a comparison of undergrounding transmission lines per mile urban/suburban locations then compare with the $4 mil per mile.
In the rugged mountain terrain heavy equipment will have to be flown in by helicopter. Check the mobilization costs in those estimates
They need to loose the company.Totally miss managed for years and now we are going to pay for there neglect.They have been on the gravy train to long.
And what would you suggest? Let the government control it, lol?
And you want the state to take over PG&E? Hell, they can’t run DMV. They can’t run the EDD.
Guess you want all of California to burn down. Fiscal mismanagement is California’s motto – brought to you by the democrats.
Yeah, yeah, sure. Weren’t they suppose to start that several rate hikes ago?
This won’t cost PG&E one Nigerian Cent. The ratepayers will pay for it. Bend forward for the 500th time.
Yep. The only consumer solution is to get off the grid.
Somehow, though, I’m sure California will find a way to tax the sun.
Don’t forget they will also be digging up your property to get the electricity to your house, probably a new box and who knows what else. Of course you will be responsible for cleaning up their mess.
Fred: That isn’t part of this project. This is only for the high tension lines in more remote locations. When and if they get around to individual private property under grounding, homeowners will be responsible for all costs and sub contractors from the property line up to and including the new meter main you will need. Quite a mess indeed!
Underground explosions are always better.
There goes are streets…all ripped up and left in shambles. PG@E never cleans up their messes and have caused~~Earthquakes and fires~~ from there poor work..
In Houston they had flooding problems with underground utilities. Also what about phone and cable lines? Will they be going underground too? Of course that’s an expense we will have bare as well.
Or… ya know we could just break them up into smaller entities that manage different parts of the state?
but then they cant cumulatively gouge and squeeze us for every nickel and dime
About time.
I can vouch it being expensive. Will it be $4 million per mile? Not sure but it’s expensive. Attaching aerially is alot cheaper.
To “Rule 20” all of power and communication is expensive.
Permitting, doing the under grounding is costly.
PS I work for a telecom company out of Santa Rosa
Don
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$4 million per mile is within reason according to engineering cost estimates.
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Then again so was the basebfigure for the new Bay Bridge but that ended up costing five times more than the estimate.
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Martinezmike I like your answer.
Since when has anything proposed in this state ever been completed within the amount budgeted? Remember the train to no where that we are still paying for and all of the cost overruns? Like someone suggested, PG&E just picked a number out of thin air as the cost of this project.
Yay for this. A great use of my almost $500 January PGE bill.
Whoa! I thought mine was high at over four hundred. They jacked up the price of natural gas. The other thing is how much are we paying for other peoples energy.
I hope they do the most troublesome places first.
I feel you