The safety of our customers, employees, and the communities we serve is our highest priority.
Over the past 10 years, SDG&E has invested more than $3 billion dollars into a variety of safety measures and programs, including hardening our infrastructure, to reduce utility-related wildfire risk and protect you, our customers, and the communities we live in and serve. Work to harden our infrastructure is done in the areas with the greatest risk for wildfire in our region, also known as the High Fire Threat District. So, what does hardening our infrastructure mean exactly? Here’s a quick look:
- Replacing wood poles with fire-resistant steel poles. We’ve done this to 26,000 of them so far
- Trimming and maintaining more than 455,000 trees to keep them away from poles and cables
- Placing overheard lines underground to reduce wildfire risk, also known as Strategic Undergrounding; and
- Hardening our distribution and transmission lines with covered conductor
We have also introduced a combination of new technology-based strategies to reduce wildfire risk and the impact of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS):
- We’ve developed and launched advanced protection systems, like the falling conductor technology, which deenergizes a falling power line in mid-air before it hits the ground
- We’re building a new private communications network that allows high-speed communication between our systems in the field and supports technologies like the falling conductor program
- We’re constructing microgrids. These are small grids that operate at the same time or independently of the larger electric grid. They allow us to keep power flowing to critical facilities like fire departments, health clinics, schools and CAL FIRE’s Ramona Air Attack Base during planned and unplanned outages, including Public Safety Power Shutoffs
- We use drones to inspect, assess and make any needed repairs on poles and lines in places where crews have a hard time accessing. These drones also take pictures that are used with artificial Intelligence for forecasting models that predict risks and identify any potential dangers
This is just a small picture of what SDG&E does year-round to keep you and our region’s communities safe. While we continue to work hard to harden our infrastructure and leverage the latest clean technologies to prevent wildfire, we recognize there’s more to be done – and our commitment is stronger than ever.
To learn more about these programs and how you and your loved ones can be prepared for wildfire, outages and emergencies, visit our Wildfire Safety web page.