PG&E installs weather stations
New installations in Willits, Ukiah, Hopland, Boonville, Redwood Valley
As it prepares for more severe weather events by installing equipment designed to track high-risk fire conditions, Pacific Gas and Electric announced this week that it has installed more than a dozen new weather stations in Mendocino County.
“More than 200 new weather stations have been installed this year alone, 17 of those are in Mendocino County, more than any other installations for a county in 2021,” the agency reported in a press release. “PG&E plans to have a total of 1,300 by the end of 2021. This will equip the company with one weather station for every 20-line miles of electric distribution circuits within Tier 2 and Tier 3 High Fire-threat Districts, as designated by the California Public Utilities Commission.”
The agency explains that “data captured by the weather stations such as temperature, wind speed and humidity levels help PG&E
meteorologists evaluate where severe weather may be headed and inform utility operational planning. During a (Public Safety Power Shutoff) PG&E turns off specific power lines, based on severe weather conditions, for public safety. This is to prevent tree branches and other debris from contacting energized power lines.”
The agency notes that since 2018, it has “installed more than 1,200 weather stations mostly across high fire-threat areas in Northern and Central California. There is a total of at least 67 weather stations in Mendocino County, with some of the newest ones installed in the following locations: Willits, Ukiah, Hopland, Boonville, Redwood Valley.”
“Observations from the weather stations contribute to the improvement of our predictive capabilities for PSPS events. We now have a historical database of these observations, many in remote areas where we have never had this level of detailed data before, and it is now used to help finetune our models to better predict when critical fire weather conditions may occur,” Ashley Helmetag, Senior PG&E Meteorologist, is quoted as saying inapressrelease.“asthe model is improved, the forecast becomes more accurate, allowing meteorologists to limit the scope of PSPS events to the areas where the riskiest fire weather conditions are expected, and to do so with higher confidence.”
The agency also notes that the “weather stations are just one part of PG&E’S Community Wildfire Safety Program. The program also includes the installation of hundreds of sectionalizing devices to break the grid into smaller pieces and hardening hundreds of miles of lines, poles, and other infrastructure to reduce wildfire risk and lessen the effects of PSPS events on customers.”