SACRAMENTO – The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (Energy Safety) today released its draft approval of Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Base Plan (WMP). Release of the plan initiates a 30-day public comment period.
In its 2026-2028 Base WMP, PG&E made progress on reducing its backlog of open work orders and has increased the amount of work being done to close work orders while maintaining its rate of issue identification. PG&E is planning the use of new technologies that include machine learning models to proactively gauge the health of its assets for repair or replacement. PG&E has updated its procedures, adding a second annual maintenance cycle to its pole clearing program to shorten the time between clearings and to minimize the amount of vegetation under electric poles that are susceptible to ignition.
PG&E does have areas where it must improve, including its lack of basic documentation on aerial scan inspections and routine vegetation management patrols. Energy Safety expects PG&E to continue its collaboration with other electrical corporations to share lessons learned, establish best practices, standardize procedures, and explore new methods and technologies.
Written comments are due by December 26 and must be submitted to the 2026-2028 Electrical Corporate Wildfire Mitigation Plans Docket (#2026-2028 WMPs).