Latest news with #PG&E
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Wildfire in Yokuts Valley prompts evacuation warnings, Fresno deputies say
A wildfire flared up in the Yokuts Valley in Fresno County Monday afternoon. The Fresno County Sheriff's Office said Cal Fire and Fresno County Fire is battling the Rector Fire on Crane Lane, located north of Highway 180 and Elwood Road. The blaze, which started just after 4 p.m., has burned 15 acres. Deputies are going door-to-door issuing evacuation warnings to certain residents living in Zone K73 North, according to the sheriff's office map system. Access the map at: PG&E is working to deactivate electricity in the immediate area as firefighters try to contain the fire.
CBS News
14 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Lathrop Irrigation District, PG&E speak on power outage over hot weekend
LATHROP -- Rising temperatures mean more air conditioning. For hundreds of residents in Lathrop's River Islands, they had to sweat it out over this weekend's high heat. "Everyone was able to freeze their water, or go out to the pool, or make other arrangements -- so it's pretty good," Donna Cunningham said. "It always seems to happen on the hottest day of the year though," Frank Cunningham added. For about nine hours on Saturday, residents didn't have power. According to Lathrop Irrigation District (LID), this was a test of their switch at their substation that powers the relatively new development of River Islands. The test is federally mandated and happens once every five to six years. Its purpose is essential. "It keeps all our stuff safe in our switch yards," LID General Manager Erik Jones explained. "That way our power isn't interrupted if there are surge fires, whatever kind of keeps it, you know, safe for us. They have to test those. Usually it's every five, six years, but it's a federally mandated test." According to LID, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) reached out to them earlier this year, saying they needed time to test the switch. With Lathrop only having one switch, they didn't have a choice but to shut off power for hours. That outage was scheduled months in advance, and it just so happened to land on a weekend with scorching temperatures. "It was either a Thursday or Memorial Day. Obviously, because of Memorial Day, the weather was a lot nicer, but there's a lot that's a big holiday and it would have been probably a lot worse if we chose that day," Jones said. CBS Sacramento reached out to PG&E about the timing of the outage. They sent a statement reading: "Our preference was to conduct this work in the evening when it is cooler in order to have the least amount of impact on our customers." Why wasn't the outage delayed? LID said that by the time it got PG&E's request, they had already sent out their 30-day notice to residents and didn't want to postpone the test later into the hot summer months. "We have to notify within 30 days of any interruptions, if we can," Jones explained. "We tried to give the best warning we could. When they scheduled the day of May 31, who knew it was gonna be 105 that day? It's just the way Mother Nature works this time." LID was able to turn the power back on before the original outage timeline. As of right now, there are no other outages planned.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PG&E and California Fire Foundation Open Applications for Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Grants
More than $1 million in grants, public education, and outreach funded in 2025; Applications Accepted May 30 through June 30 OAKLAND, Calif., June 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahead of California's peak fire season, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the California Fire Foundation (CFF) are encouraging California-based fire departments and community-based organizations to apply for grants for wildfire safety and preparedness programs and projects. Applications must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on June 30, 2025, through the CFF website. Award notification will begin July 31, 2025. The grant program continues an eight-year partnership between PG&E and CFF. PG&E and The PG&E Corporation Foundation (PG&E Foundation) are providing a total of $1.65 million to CFF's Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program (WSPP). The program continues to raise public awareness about wildfire safety and deliver resources to underserved communities in high fire-risk areas. The program includes a competitive grant program that last year awarded 55 local fire departments and community groups $750,000 in funding. This year's program includes increased funding for $950,000 in grant awards. Funding for these charitable donations comes from PG&E shareholders, not customers. In 2024, funding supported: Purchasing approximately 7,560 pieces of personal protection equipment including helmets, boots, gloves, goggles and fire shelters Removing over 21 acres of hazardous tree and brush Chipping and hauling of 1.5 million pounds of tree limbs, branches and other combustibles Conducting 22 prescribed fires or pile burns for forest management "Now in its eighth year, the Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program serves as a constant reminder to Californians of the recurring and deadly nature of wildfires," said Angie Carmignani, Executive Director of the California Fire Foundation. "Whether during historic wildfire seasons or quieter periods, the program has remains steadfast – reaching communities year after year to ensure they're prepared for wildfire. Our partnership with PG&E has been instrumental in making this life-saving work possible and directly supports CFF's mission to strengthen disaster preparedness across our state." Since 2018, CFF, which administers and manages the program, has awarded 368 grants to fire departments and community organizations statewide, focusing its efforts in Northern and Central California. Funding targets communities identified as having extreme or elevated fire risk as identified by the California Public Utilities Commission. "PG&E is grateful for our ongoing partnership with the California Fire Foundation as we share the goal of helping our hometowns do everything possible to prevent wildfires. The projects that these grants fund, such as creating defensible space, enabling fuel-reduction programs and conducting fire-safety outreach campaigns, are essential across our service area and especially within underserved communities," said Mark Quinlan, PG&E's Senior Vice President, Wildfire, Emergency & Operations. How the Grants Help Communities From 2018 to the present, PG&E and the PG&E Foundation have provided $10.45 million in total support for fire safety awareness through the program. The charitable contributions are shareholder-funded, not paid for by PG&E customers. Since 2018, WSPP has funded: Specialized fire equipment and personal protective equipment Defensible space and vegetation management efforts Fuel/hazard reduction programs Fire prevention and emergency preparedness education, including senior citizen wildfire preparedness programs Partnerships with community groups in high fire-risk areas to distribute fire-safety information Fire safety outreach campaigns, including 12,000 multi-lingual brochures targeting under-resourced communities in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hmong, and Vietnamese The program develops and distributes in-language fire-safety messaging targeting Spanish, Chinese, Hmong, and Vietnamese communities. These efforts include a comprehensive media campaign consisting of outdoor billboards and in-language television, radio, and digital ads. The California Fire Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, aids firefighters, their families, and the communities they protect. CFF's Firefighters on Your Side program, also supported by PG&E, provides multi-lingual, culturally relevant fire safety messaging in both digital and print forms to assist the public in staying safe. About PG&E Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit and About The PG&E Corporation Foundation The PG&E Corporation Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, separate from PG&E and sponsored by PG&E Corporation. About California Fire FoundationThe California Fire Foundation, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization, provides emotional and financial assistance to families of fallen firefighters, firefighters, and the communities they protect. Formed in 1987 by California Professional Firefighters, the California Fire Foundation's mandate includes an array of survivor and victim assistance projects and community initiatives. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PG&E restarts huge grid battery following Moss Landing fire next door
One of the biggest grid batteries in California has resumed operations following the cataclysmic Moss Landing fire in January. The San Francisco Bay Area's power grid used to draw on two battery storage plants in the quiet seaside town of Moss Landing. Texas-based power company Vistra built the nation's largest standalone grid battery on the grounds of an old gas power plant there, and utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. built and owns the Elkhorn project next door. A roaring fire engulfed Vistra's historic turbine hall in January, wrecking rows of lithium-ion batteries that delivered 300 megawatts of instantaneous grid power. That site is still in shambles. PG&E's battery plant suffered far less disruption: Hot ash blew over the fenceline from Vistra's property, posing an environmental hazard and potentially clogging batteries' thermal management systems. But after several months of remediation, cleaning, and testing, PG&E was able to flip the switch Sunday to reconnect Elkhorn to the grid. That timing proved fortuitous, as it restored 182.5 megawatts/730 megawatt-hours of storage capacity into the power-hungry Silicon Valley grid corridor right before the region's first major heat wave of the summer. 'The concern was lower in the winter months, with demand lower,' said Dave Gabbard, vice president of power generation at PG&E. 'It will be critical to have assets like Elkhorn available as we get into the peak summer months.' Indeed, California has been building grid batteries at a record pace, to store the state's nation-leading solar generation and deliver it during crucial hours, like after sunset. The tech is displacing some gas-fired power generation in the state. California's battery fleet passed 15.7 gigawatts installed per a May tally, which Gov. Gavin Newsom's office touted as 'an unprecedented milestone.' The governor, a Democrat, did not specify why the 15.7-GW threshold merits particular attention, but it does mean California has added more than 5 GW since it crossed the 10-GW mark a year prior. 'The pace of construction for large-scale energy storage in California is phenomenal, the kind of accomplishment that was beyond our wildest dreams a few years ago,' said Scott Murtishaw, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance. The state's battery buildout is plowing ahead. But Vistra's fiery failure sparked deep community concerns about battery safety in California and beyond, as Moss Landing residents were forced to evacuate for several days and plumes of smoke loomed over surrounding estuaries and farmlands. In April, Vistra rescinded an application to build a 600-MW battery in Morro Bay, two hours down the coast from Moss Landing, following significant local resistance that intensified after the January fire. The reset at Elkhorn has rekindled concerns among community leaders who are still grappling with the fallout from the largest-ever battery fire in the U.S., and quite possibly the world. The Monterey County Board of Supervisors had asked to keep both battery plants offline until the Vistra investigation was completed and acted upon. 'Restarting operations before investigations are complete and before stronger emergency protocols are in place is disappointing and deeply troubling,' Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church posted on Facebook after learning of PG&E's plans in early May. Crucially, PG&E's battery layout, completed in 2022, mitigates the hazards that took out the neighboring Vistra plant, which was completed two years earlier. Officials have not yet pinpointed the cause of Vistra's fire, but it became so destructive because it spread through the densely packed rows of batteries in the old turbine hall, igniting more and more fuel as it grew. By contrast, PG&E's Elkhorn plant spans 256 individual Tesla Megapack containers spaced over the property. 'We have a completely different design,' Gabbard said. 'We have compartmentalized our design so that fire propagation won't occur to adjacent units.' That industry-wide preference for separate, containerized systems doesn't eliminate the chance of battery fires, but it does limit the potential severity. One container might burn, but the fire can't reach all the other batteries. A fire could knock a facility offline temporarily, but it would only eliminate a small percentage of its capacity, Murtishaw said. That stands in contrast to Moss Landing's failure, or the all-or-nothing issues that can occur when a gas-burning turbine malfunctions. 'The technology and standards have changed considerably since the first big batteries,' like Vistra's, Murtishaw said. 'Facilities coming online now are being constructed with newer technologies meeting newer standards. Risk of runaway incidents has decreased dramatically relative to the amount of storage being deployed.' That compartmentalization strategy worked out when Elkhorn suffered its own battery fire in 2022 — the result of water seeping into a unit through an improperly installed roof, Gabbard said. The single unit burned in a contained fashion and did not spread to any other batteries. PG&E restarted the facility three months later, after implementing recommendations from an independent investigation into the cause. Since that incident, PG&E installed air quality monitoring onsite, and heat-sensing cameras that can automatically disconnect the site from the broader grid if they detect fire, Gabbard said. It also upgraded the battery enclosures to automatically discharge stored energy if abnormal behavior is detected. PG&E additionally updated its emergency action plan and instituted annual exercises with the North County Fire Protection District. When Vistra's plant burned up in January, the Elkhorn cameras spotted it and automatically severed the connection to the grid, halting the flow of high-voltage power out of the site. PG&E also made the air quality data available to emergency response teams. The utility then kept Elkhorn offline for the subsequent months to allow for environmental remediation of the soot to keep it out of local waterways, Gabbard said. Workers also cleaned the Megapacks 'outside and inside,' he noted. The main concern was that the ash could have intruded into the systems that cool batteries during operations. Staff pressure-washed all those components and tested their functionality to get the site ready for operations. Another 10 gigawatts of storage are already under contract for California's regulated utilities and community choice aggregators over the next four years, Murtishaw said. That would put the state over 25 gigawatts, well on its way to the current goal of 52 gigawatts by 2045, stemming from the state's clean energy law SB 100. To achieve that goal, the Moss Landing calamity needs to remain an outlier event. There's good reason to believe that will be the case. For one thing, the industry has all but abandoned Vistra's strategy of packing huge amounts of batteries into a single building. California now has 214 grid-scale batteries, and only about 10 of them reside in a building, Murtishaw noted. Those are subject to inspection by the California Public Utilities Commission under a recently expanded authority, he added; in the meantime, owners have stepped up safety measures in response to the Moss Landing news. Small-scale batteries in homes and businesses also count for California's top-line storage goal. They depend on the same core battery technologies as the large-scale storage projects, but as mass-produced consumer items, they go through a different gauntlet of tests before they reach customers. 'The home batteries are tested inside and out, up and down — they undergo rigorous safety testing and certification to standards,' said Brad Heavner, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, which advocates for rooftop solar and battery installers. In the state Legislature, Sen. John Laird, a Democrat from the Moss Landing area, introduced a bill in March to systematize coordination between battery owners and local emergency responders, and to fix a timing mismatch so California's fire codes match the latest standards set by the National Fire Protection Association. Murtishaw said the California Energy Storage Alliance supports the measure, which passed out of the Senate last week.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Northern California crash into PG&E pole causes wildfire, power outage for more than 4,000 addresses
( — A car crash into a high-voltage Pacific Gas and Electric Company power pole caused a wildfire and power outage for thousands of people in Northern California on Friday night. • Video Above: What to do after the power goes out? The Lathrop Police Department responded to multiple calls about a vehicle that collided with a high-voltage PG&E power pole. Additionally, 911 callers reported that the crash caused a fast-moving vegetation fire. Northern California garlic festival returns to Gilroy for the first time since mass shooting When LPD arrived at the scene, officers found the driver, who was uninjured. They said intoxication was not a factor in the crash. The Manteca Fire Department also responded and was able to contain the fire before it spread or caused further damage. As a result of the collision, nearly 4,600 addresses in Lathrop and Manteca experienced widespread power outages, according to LPD. The outage also impacted Lathrop's traffic signals and street lighting. The crash comes amid planned power outages in Lathrop on Saturday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
