California Public Utilities Commission: Pacific Gas and Electric's Revised Wildfire Mitigation Plan Criticized by AT&T

Strategic Insights -

The California Public Utilities Commission is reviewing Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E) revised plan to underground thousands of miles of its overhead power lines for wildfire mitigation purposes. As part of this review, AT&T has submitted a Sur-Reply Brief to address PG&E's revisions and reiterate its previous concerns regarding the plan's scope, cost, and impact on broadband and communications providers. AT&T argues that PG&E's revised plan still lacks essential details and does not alleviate the uncertainty surrounding the undergrounding initiative. The company also asserts that the plan's costs, potentially reaching $2 billion, should be borne by PG&E, not broadband and communications providers like AT&T. Furthermore, AT&T advocates for a separate rulemaking to address the costs of communications providers being forced to underground communications facilities as a result of electric utilities' wildfire-mitigation undergrounding.

Key Takeaways:

  • AT&T criticizes PG&E's revised wildfire mitigation plan for lacking essential details and clarity on implementation timelines, cost recovery, and notice periods for specific undergrounding projects.
  • AT&T recommends that the Commission waive or reimburse broadband and communications providers like itself for wildfire mitigation costs, due to a lack of fire-ignition risk and captive ratepayers to recover costs from.
  • The Commission should initiate a separate rulemaking to address the costs of communications providers being forced to underground communications facilities as a result of electric utilities' wildfire-mitigation undergrounding.
  • AT&T highlights the potential impact of PG&E's undergrounding proposal on broadband deployment, a top Commission priority, and emphasizes the need for a fair, equitable, and competitively neutral recovery mechanism for telecommunications carriers and cable companies.
  • The Commission's review of PG&E's revised plan has significant implications for the state's wildfire mitigation efforts and the role of broadband and communication providers in addressing this challenge.

Statistics:

  • PG&E's revised plan proposes to underground 2,000 miles of overhead power lines, down from the original 3,358 miles.
  • The revised plan reduces the projected costs from $10 billion to $6 billion.
  • AT&T estimates its potential costs for undergrounding its facilities, assuming an average of 35 poles per mile and an average cost of $1,000 per pole, could reach $70 million.
  • If AT&T had to underground its facilities across 2,000 miles at an average cost of $1 million per mile, the cost would be $2 billion.

Sources:

  • Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E): Reply Brief to the California Public Utilities Commission, Section 4.3.1.1.
  • AT&T: Sur-Reply Brief to the California Public Utilities Commission, January 23, 2023.
  • California Public Utilities Commission: D.18-12-021, Application of California-Am. Water Co. (U210w) for Authorization to Increase Its Revenues for Water Serv. by $34,559,200 or 16.29% in the Year 2018, by $8,478,500 or 3.43% in the Year 2019, & by $7,742,600 or 3.03% in the Year 2020, (C.P.U.C. Dec. 13, 2018) (A.16-07-002).
  • California Public Utilities Commission: D.01-12-009, Interim Opinion Revising the Rules for Converting Overhead Lines to Underground, at 26 (Cal. P.U.C. Dec. 11, 2001).
  • California Public Utilities Commission: D.11-06-038, Order, Re Modifications to the California Advanced Services Fund, at 1 (C.P.U.C. Jun. 23, 2011).