Saying it was very successful during the pilot phase a year ago, PG and E has greatly expanded its Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings across all high fire-risk areas. And that includes Nevada County. Deanna Contreras, with Marketing and Communications, says portions of all circuits are now part of the program, compared to just a few a year ago…

click to listen to Deanna Contreras

Like the Public Safety Power Shutoffs, the utility continues to try to reduce its liability for sparking power lines causing wildfires. And although that means more likely outages, Contreras says they’re usually not as long for the Enhanced Settings program. Outages tend to be of greater duration and more widespread with the PSPS program, which is implemented when there’s a wildfire threat…

click to listen to Deanna Contreras

Safety settings turn off power within one-tenth of a second when there’s a fault detected. But Contreras says line sensitivity has been lessened. She also says last year, during the pilot phase, there was an 82-percent reduction in reportable ignitions in high fire threat districts that would have resulted in a wildfire, compared to the prior three-year average.