Pacific Power and PG&E Team Up to Restore Electricity to Wildfire Impacted Community

Press release from PG&E:

As the Smith River Complex Fire continues to burn in far Northern California, two utility companies who share a border and a first name have teamed up to help restore power to homes and businesses in Crescent City.

The fire, currently burning 40,000 acres with no containment, started on Aug. 15 when 150 lightning strikes resulted in more than two dozen fires. It has caused power outages to 12,000 Pacific Power customers. The utility, which serves 800,000 customers in 243 communities across Oregon, Washington and California, asked for mutual-aid generation support from its southern neighbor, Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The request, which was made on Saturday, was quickly accepted by PG&E and has already helped restore 3,500 customers.

“This is a demonstration of the strength of our industry. We have a neighbor utility that needed assistance. Through our agreements, we were able to take an innovative approach that we’ve executed to support our customers and bring it to Pacific Power to help their customers,” said Angie Gibson, PG&E Vice President of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

Tracie Avila, Manager of Temporary Generation and Kiichi Matsuno, Supervisor of Temporary Generation West helped with restoration efforts for Pacific Power customers in Crescent City.

Gibson, along with temporary generation manager Tracie Avila, travelled to Crescent City on Monday to help support the work being executed by Kiichi Matsuno, supervisor of PG&Es Temporary Generation team and dozens of contractors installing the generation equipment. The aid so far will include generators to support 37.5 megawatts of peak load at 5 substations, restoring 11,400 customers. In addition to the generation support, PG&E has deployed four Safety and Infrastructure Protection Teams (SIPT), and two SIPT supervisors to support asset protection activities on Pacific Powers’ transmission line

“It’s a unique effort in many ways. Pacific Power has used primary generation in the past, but never at this scale and never with multiple generators. It’s good experience for our team and for theirs. And in a way it gives us a chance to return the support their crews have provided us in the past,” Angie said.

Pacific Power Vice President of Transmission and Distribution Operations Allen Berreth said he understands how frustrating extended outages can be for his customers, and he appreciates the help from PG&E.

“Providing safe, reliable electricity for our customers is our number one priority. Pacific Power crews have been working around the clock to restore as many customers as possible in Crescent City using large generators, and we will be working to restore more customers in the coming days with help from our utility partners at PG&E,” Allen said.

Angie Gibson said PG&E crews expect to install two more primary generators on Tuesday, then one per day on Wednesday and Thursday at several other substations and Pelican Bay State Prison. The mutual aid effort is expected to continue for several weeks.