How Advanced Weather Technology Helped PG&E Slash Power Shutoffs in 2020

As I’m sure you know, the extreme threat of forest fires in California has made planned outages an unfortunate reality, but new advances in weather technology are helping to flip the script.  In fact, Pacific Electric & Gas (PG&E), the state’s largest combined gas and electric utility, is using cutting-edge weather technology to slash the average size of each dreaded public safety power shutoff (PSPS) by an amazing 55%!

Snapshot of PG&E’s New and Improved Weather Technology

The foundation of PG&E’s improved performance is essentially the ability to cast a faster and wider visual net that enables the company to quickly compare actual weather patterns to forecasts.  In other words, the utility is notified quickly whenever the actual weather conditions are below the predicted risk thresholds, and it can use this information to remove low-risk households from the PSPS queue.

Previously, these same households would probably have been included in one or more planned shutoffs from which they could have or should have been excluded.  But with access to comprehensive, near real time data, PG&E is now able to essentially change the geographic scope on the fly.

The company’s impressive improvement is due to an expansion of its observation network, which includes tools such as weather stations and high-definition fire-watch cameras located in areas of extreme fire risk.  The network encompasses over 1,000 weather stations and nearly 350 cameras in central and northern California.  And in 2020, PG&E deployed another 400 stations and 200 cameras via its “Community Wildfire Safety Program.”  By 2022, the company expects to be able to monitor and observe, in real time, 90% of the high-risk fire areas it serves.

I am very impressed with the way in which PG&E has deployed and is utilizing advanced weather technology.