SACRAMENTO – The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (Energy Safety) today adopted its 10-Year Electrical Undergrounding Plan Guidelines. Adoption of the guidelines concludes a public process that involved extensive stakeholder participation.
Energy Safety promulgates the guidelines for California’s large electrical corporations to follow in submission of 10-year undergrounding plans.
Senate Bill 884, (McGuire, 2022), allows a large electrical corporation (250,000 customers or more) to voluntarily submit a 10-year distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan to Energy Safety for approval. If Energy Safety approves a plan, the electrical corporation then files an application with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for conditional approval of the plan’s costs.
An electrical corporation’s plan is required to compare the costs and benefits of undergrounding to alternative system hardening and risk mitigation measures, projects must be within high fire threat districts and rebuild areas, and it must be demonstrated that the 10-year plan substantially decreases wildfire risk and substantially increases reliability.