Dublin City Council Receives PG&E Outage Report

On By Littum

DUBLIN, Calif. – The Dublin City Council will receive a presentation Tuesday from PG&E regarding two recent power outages in October that affected about 7,000 customers in East Dublin, Pleasanton, Livermore and unincorporated Alameda County.

Map of affected area, courtesy PG&E and City of Dublin

On Oct. 18, city staff contacted PG&E for information about the outages, according to a report from city staff. PG&E told staff that the outages were likely due to Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings, settings implemented on power lines in and around high fire risk areas. During extreme weather or wildfire conditions, EPSS settings are increased to prevent falling tree branches, animals or other hazards from starting a fire. PG&E said these settings reduced wildfires by 72% by 2023.

During the red flag warning on 17-19 As of October, only one Dublin resident was scheduled to be affected by a public safety power outage. But PG&E officials said the outages were caused when a bird touched extra-sensitive power lines.

The city scheduled a meeting with PG&E on Oct. 28 to discuss the outages and was told they were caused by a bird touching the sensitive power lines, causing the entire circuit to shut down. PG&E officials also apologized for not being able to provide direct notifications to customers about restoration estimates until after the outage.

The city requested mitigation efforts to address the fallout, according to the staff report. PG&E said it had installed bird protection tools on the overhead power lines in the Collier Canyon and Canyon areas, and is also investigating the possibility of installing a circuit breaker at the circuit breaker on Canyon Road. This would isolate hazard-related incidents in the Doolan Canyon area from affecting the East Dublin area.

City staff said they are working with PG&E to proactively communicate with residents about ESPSS outages whenever possible.

See here for more information, and here for the full meeting agenda. The meeting will take place at 19:00 in the City Council in the City Hall. It will also be broadcast on Kanal 28, streamed live on tv30.0rg and on city ​​website.