How PG&E Performs Wildfire Risk Mitigation

Overview

PG&E works with Technosylva to advance their wildfire risk reduction decision-making process with data-driven results. Technosylva’s platform advances PG&E’s risk modeling for fire severity and fire behavior characteristics while capturing valuable information on the potential consequences of ignition, for use in real-time wildfire risk forecasting for PSPS determination across their service territory.

Fire Spread Modeling & PSPS

PG&E works with Technosylva to simulate fire spread and consequence impacts. These simulations are performed across your assets for the forecast period to provide the highest risk areas throughout your service territory over the next five days.

Outputs are used in PSPS assessments, long-term planning models, and real-time fire spread analysis to understand the impacts of the risk, and to better understand the consequences from fires had PSPS not been executed.

Identifying Circuit Risk

Using real-time weather models, state-of-the-art fuel, and 8-hour fire spread modeling, Technosylva produces fire simulation forecasts on the consequence of a wildfire’s potential impact on customers, wildlife and infrastructures on each circuit for every three hours. These forecasts are used to determine the distribution circuits and transmission lines for a potential PSPS and the data is used as inputs into a risk-benefit tool. 

The risk-benefit tool quantifies the potential public safety risk and wildfire risk resulting from the forecasted impacts of the potential PSPS event. The Officer in Charge reviews the output of this analysis to help decide whether to de-energize the areas in consideration to protect public safety.

Consequence Analysis with Fire Severity Simulation Modeling

Technosylva simulation outputs are used as the source of fire severity data that is the primary input into the spatial wildfire consequence calculations. Each day, PG&E performs more than 100 million fire spread simulations every three hours showing simulations for the next 3 days. These simulations provide fire spread outputs (e.g., potential number of acres burned, and population impacted) and can be visualized per overhead circuit in forecast mode to determine the highest risk circuits every three hours.

PG&E also has the ability through Technosylva’s Wildfire Analyst Enterprise to simulate fires on-demand. This involves selecting a location on a map, the start time of ignition, and the simulation duration in hours. The Technosylva wildfire spread model uses the dynamic weather forecast of wind and fuel moisture to model how the wildfire might spread.

Weather & Fuel Modeling Improvements Beyond Public Sources

Improving and Ensuring Accurate Fuels Data

Technosylva provides a fuels data updating subscription used by PG&E and other IOUs that ensures surface and canopy fuels data is kept up to date during the calendar year. The fuel model map baseline is adjusted to account for recent burn scars and vegetation regrowth. PG&E worked closely with Technosylva fire scientists to consolidate and adjust the 50+ fuel model types as conditions change seasonally to drive more accurate simulations and wildfire mitigation decisions.