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Behind California Rolling Blackouts Aimed at Curbing Wildfires

Catwell

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PG&E provides electric service for approximately 16-million people in northern and central California. (Image credit: PG&E)

 

Several days ago, California’s electric utility provider PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) announced it would proactively cut power during days of strong winds and extreme fire danger in an effort prevent wildfires, as it’s widely believed overhead power lines were responsible for sparking last year’s deadly Camp fire. The intentional outages began shortly afterward, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, and at one point, over a million were left in the dark.

 

While being without power is an aggravating experience, it can also be a deadly one, especially for those that rely on in-home equipment for particular medical purposes, or those with limited income who can’t replace the food in their refrigerators. The problem, some believe, is the overhead power lines that run for thousands of miles through northern and central California, which tend to sway violently during high winds, which could produce sparks that ignite any dry brush near them.

 

The question on everyone’s mind, why not just bury them underground. The issue here is money, and PG&E can’t foot the bill, as the company filed for bankruptcy due to an $11-billion lawsuit brought on by the Camp fire survivors. A report on the power utility’s website outlines the costs associated with burying power transmission lines, which comes out to around $3-million per mile to convert overhead lines to underground. By contrast, it costs roughly $800,000 to install new overhead lines.

 

According to CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission), California has 25,526 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, and 239,557 miles of distribution lines, two-thirds of which are overhead. Under 100 miles of converted overhead lines are buried each year, meaning it would take more than 1,000 years to bury all the power lines. Now, at the cost of $3-million per mile, it would cost PG&E $243-billion to undertake a burial project of that scale, significantly more than an $11-billion lawsuit.

 

Obviously, there are no quick fixes here, but there are ways to mitigate wildfires started by those transmission lines, with the most evident being controlled burns to get rid of the dry material around those transmission lines. Bolstering those lines and the grid to be more resilient would also help with the problem, as well as tying in renewable energy sources and power storage.

 

As if California didn’t have enough problems on its hands, a wildfire burning Northwest of Los Angeles has burned over 4,700 acres of land, damaged over 25 homes, and has forced the evacuation of 100,000 people. It’s believed a brush fire was responsible for starting the blaze, which has also forced the closure of the 210 and 5 freeways. The fire is zero contained at this point, and it’s unknown if more mandatory evacuations will be ordered.

 

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  • It's not just about the initial cost of underground vs buried. A buried cable is a lot more difficult and costly to repair if it goes wrong, even finding the fault in miles of buried cable is daunting. You can obviously over engineer the cable design in the first place, but that adds costs. You can also put link boxes along the line, but anything like this that is designed to be inspected produces a weak point more likely to failure in the long term.

     

    The trenches for underground EHV lines are also wide and deep and would cause serious impact on the wildlife and fauna that it ploughs through.

     

    Pylon design can help to increase creepage distances and prevent lines shorting as they move, but you are up against the forces of nature and any overhead line could be the victim of being blown down.

Comment

  • It's not just about the initial cost of underground vs buried. A buried cable is a lot more difficult and costly to repair if it goes wrong, even finding the fault in miles of buried cable is daunting. You can obviously over engineer the cable design in the first place, but that adds costs. You can also put link boxes along the line, but anything like this that is designed to be inspected produces a weak point more likely to failure in the long term.

     

    The trenches for underground EHV lines are also wide and deep and would cause serious impact on the wildlife and fauna that it ploughs through.

     

    Pylon design can help to increase creepage distances and prevent lines shorting as they move, but you are up against the forces of nature and any overhead line could be the victim of being blown down.

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