Investor-owned utilities serve about 75% of all customers across the U.S. Power infrastructure is ubiquitous, and implementing these changes is costly. "We see the effects of it now, and we know if we don't get control of this, the effects are only going to get worse," Takayesu said. This includes a team of meteorologists and fire science experts that are constantly monitoring conditions. This year, the company, which supplies roughly 15 million people in central, coastal and southern California, plans to spend around 20% of its budget on wildfire mitigation. But as things intensify with the wildfire risk we've stepped up our wildfire mitigation strategy," he said. "We've had operational practices around wildfire mitigation for years. In addition to utilizing ground patrols, the company also deploys drones and helicopters to take high-resolution images in an effort to detect even the smallest anomalies. Other infrastructure safety upgrades include replacing wooden poles with those made from steel, as well as coating wires to reduce fire risk.Įrik Takayesu, Southern California Edison's vice president for asset strategy and planning, said the company takes a 360-degree view of its infrastructure. Further, sophisticated forecasting can help utilities understand what their power needs will be down the line. There are steps that utilities can take toward becoming resilient, including installing tech-enabled sensors for a more accurate snapshot of the conditions around power lines. "And that's what you see in some cases, with certain utilities today."
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"The amount of environmental pressures that are on utilities, given aging infrastructure, plus more wildfires and more hurricanes and more pressures like that, when there has been a systematic lack of investment in resiliency and reliability, it does catch up with you," said Thomas Deitrich, CEO at Itron, which helps utilities manage and analyze energy and water usage. PG&E filed for bankruptcy after the company's equipment sparked several wildfires in the past few years, including the 2018 Camp Fire blaze that killed more than 80 people and razed the town of Paradise, California. There's also the danger that aging and poorly maintained infrastructure poses.