On Friday, April 4th, PG&E filed its comprehensive 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP) with regulators at the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (Energy Safety). A WMP describes how the utility is constructing, maintaining, and operating its lines and equipment to minimize the risk of their assets igniting a catastrophic wildfire, as well as the respective costs to conduct such activities. Notably, PG&E’s three-year implementation costs are estimated at $18.875 billion. PG&E intends to underground approximately 1,100 more miles of powerlines, and updated its wood and slash management procedures, such as supporting a property owner’s ability to maintain defensible space requirements required by law, and endeavors to benchmark its wood management practices with other utilities.
Energy Safety will announce an upcoming technical workshop for stakeholders (including public agencies and members of the public) to ask questions directed at the large investor-owned utilities in mid-May, and the Small and Multi-Jurisdictional Utilities (SMJUs) in late-July. Energy Safety has primary responsibility to evaluate these Plans and determine compliance, while the California Public Utilities Commission “ratifies” Energy Safety’s final approval of these plans as well as reviews the reasonableness of the costs in each utility’s General Rate Case (GRC). Written public comments are due by May 23, 2025. Other utilities will file their 2026-2028 WMPs with a similar public vetting process to follow; the schedule can be found here.
For more information or to send feedback on PG&E’s WMP, please contact RCRC Policy Advocate Leigh Kammerich.