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Opinion by McClatchy California opinion editors: Power lines can be insulated against fires and provide good protection at less cost.

Utility industry news and analysis for energy professionals.

Dive Brief: California regulators on Thursday voted to approve a financing order giving Pacific Gas & Electric Co. the official go-ahead to securitize $7.5 billion in costs related to wildfires caused by its power lines in 2017. The securitization would pave the way for PG&E to retire about $6 billion in debt and accelerate final payments to victims of the wildfires, the utility said in its application to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). But consumer advocates, who have raised concerns about the proposal’s impact on ratepayers, are in the process of challenging it. Regulat...

Dive Brief: Regulators in California have teed up two proposals which, if approved over the next couple of months, would allow Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to securitize $7.5 billion of costs stemming from the claims it faces for a series of wildfires in 2017. PG&E last year asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for permission to recover the $7.5 billion by issuing ratepayer-backed recovery bonds under the "stress test" process. That process was adopted by lawmakers in September 2018, before the company filed for bankruptcy. PG&E sees multiple benefits to securitizing that ...

Dive Brief: The California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) wildfire safety division last week issued a 2020 safety certification for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), despite raising multiple concerns about the utility's operations and fire mitigation processes. These concerns include problems identified during field inspections, reports from PG&E's court-appointed federal monitor, as well as the investigation into the utility's potential role in sparking last September's Zogg Fire, which led to four fatalities and destroyed 204 structures. The safety certification, which is valid for 12 mo...