The POWER Podcast

The domestic content bonus credit is available to taxpayers that certify their qualified facility, energy project, or energy storage technology was built with certain percentages of steel, iron, or manufactured products that were mined, produced, or manufactured in the U.S. “What we’ve seen happen is just a proliferation of investments into U.S. domestic manufacturing,” Mike Hall, CEO of Anza Renewables, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Hall said U.S. manufacturers started with the easiest and probably lowest-risk investment in the supply chain, which is module assembly. “You could count on one hand the number of U.S. module options just a couple of years ago,” he said. “Today, I was actually looking at our database, and if you were looking to take delivery in late-2025, there are 17 different manufacturers that are willing to sign POs [purchase orders] today to supply domestically made modules.” Hall suggested most developers that are looking to utilize domestic supplies are trying to solve one or two problems. “Either they’re trying to mitigate trade risk—AD/CVD [anti-dumping and countervailing duty] risk—from the various petitions, or risk around detainment by customs due to concerns around UFLPA [Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act] violations,” explained Hall. “So, that’s one potential problem that customers are trying to solve, and a domestically made module may really help solve that problem,” he said. “The other thing, though, that we increasingly see developers looking to do is to try and access the extra 10% tax credit that you can get if you meet certain minimum standards for domestically manufactured content,” Hall continued. For solar projects, that generally means a domestically manufactured solar cell is needed. “A few years ago, again, there were one, maybe two options for that,” Hall noted. “There’s still only a few—we see those options growing over time—but if you’re looking at late-2025 deliveries, there’s four to five viable options of companies that will actually issue POs today for domestically manufactured cells. So, overall, we’re definitely seeing more and more options come to the market, and that’s really exciting.” Yet, aside from domestic content, the options available on the market have never been greater than today. “There are more manufacturers selling into the market,” said Hall. “On Anza, we have coverage of 95% of the U.S. supply, and that requires us to have relationships—partnerships in the data pipeline—with over 33 different suppliers. So, if you’re doing a mid- or large-scale project, there’s over 120 different products that you should be considering. And, so, navigating that, and finding the module or the handful of modules that are actually going to deliver an optimal financial outcome is a big challenge.” Hall suggested maximizing project economics requires having a sound view of the market. Then, developers must compare products, accounting for cost to install, predicted energy production, the value of the energy, and particular project risks and priorities. “One of the things we help developers do is really understand: what is the value in dollars per watt of efficiency and the value for their particular project,” explained Hall. “And that value differs. If you’ve got a community solar project with a really high priced PPA [power purchase agreement], then efficiency is worth a whole lot. If you’ve got a really low dollar-per-megawatt-hour utility-scale PPA, then efficiency is still worth something, but it might be worth less.” Projecting the longevity of products can be difficult, but Anza tries to factor that in using warranty information. If different manufacturers warranty their equipment for different lengths of time, that can be incorporated into financial models and will impact outcomes.

A new U.S. president will be inaugurated in less than five months. Polls show the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to be very close, with potentially only a few swing states deciding the election. While energy policy may not be a deciding factor for many Americans in choosing who they will vote for, it is very important to power industry professionals. With that in mind, Mary Anne Sullivan, senior counsel with the law firm Hogan Lovells, and Megan Ridley-Kaye, a partner with Hogan Lovells, were interviewed as guests on The POWER Podcast to discuss how the candidates might differ in their areas of focus after the election. Among the most pronounced differences is the rhetoric the two might espouse. “A Trump administration, I think, would talk a lot more about energy security, energy independence, and the need to be friendly to American-made fossil fuels,” Sullivan said. “A Harris administration, I assume, will follow in the footsteps of the Biden administration and focus on the need to respond to climate change and build on what have truly been unprecedented accomplishments under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act],” she said. Although a Trump administration might seek to repeal all or at least parts of the IRA, Sullivan thought that would be hard to achieve. “I think recent indications are that it [the IRA] has now a fair bit of support in Congress,” she said. Ridley-Kaye agreed. “Obviously, key to what happens there [the fate of the IRA] is what happens in Congress,” she said. “It seems increasingly unlikely that it will be repealed.” And, while the government has made major investments that support energy and power projects, private parties have invested a lot of money too. At this point in the cycle, however, Ridley-Kaye suggested some of her clients are beginning to take a wait-and-see approach, especially if project economics are not viable without tax credits. Still, many other investors are unworried about the possibility of policy changes. “We do have a large group of clients that would say, ‘The train has left the station. Corporate America expects the tax credits. There’s no way that they would be taken away,’ ” Ridley-Kaye said. Meanwhile, there are some areas where the candidates may see eye to eye. “No matter which of them is elected, I think they will both recognize the need for more power transmission and more power generation,” said Sullivan. “Although the Biden administration has talked a good game about greening power generation, they have also very much pursued an all-of-the-above approach to generation resources. And I would expect that to continue in a Harris administration, just because there are so many new demands for electricity—the data centers, AI [artificial intelligence], vehicle electrification, the sort of ‘electrify everything’ movement that some people talk about,” she said. Two other areas where Trump and Harris might support similar policies are on nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage. “The two administrations might have different motivations for pursuing that, but I think either one will support further technology development there,” Sullivan supposed. Sullivan would expect a more light-handed approach to regulation under a Trump administration, specifically, as applied to permitting energy infrastructure projects. “But that more light-handed regulation on permitting helps the carbon-free power projects as much as the carbon-intensive power projects. It cuts both ways,” she said. Depending on how the election plays out, the energy and power landscape could change very quickly. “Trump’s team seems much more ready to move on policy than it did when he ran the last time. I think they’re thinking about it in advance. They’re building a desired set of policies,” Sullivan said. “I do expect them to be more ready to move on their policy objectives.”

Fuel cells are not some novel new technology. In fact, most history books credit the invention of the fuel cell to Welsh chemist and physicist William Grove, who, in the late 1830s and early 1840s, conducted experiments proving that electric current could be produced from an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen over a platinum catalyst. Yet, fuel cells never really took off as a mainstream source of power. Why is that? “I think the real reason is, historically, we’ve been comfortable with less-clean, lower-efficient but less-expensive technologies, because we haven’t been as focused on air quality and on decarbonization as we currently are,” Tony Leo, executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer with FuelCell Energy, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. However, as people have become more focused on air quality and climate change, Leo suggested fuel cells are now poised to take off. “That’s why you’re seeing such an acceleration in the deployment of fuel cells and that’s why you’re hearing more and more about them these days,” he said. A fuel cell is a device that makes electricity from fuel and air. Instead of burning the fuel to make heat to drive a mechanical generator, fuel cells react the fuel and air electrochemically, without combustion. The electrochemical approach avoids pollutants that are created by high flame temperatures, and it is a more direct and efficient way to make power from a fuel. Reacting fuel and air electrochemically involves delivering fuel to a set of negative electrodes (called anodes) and delivering air to a set of positive electrodes (called cathodes). The electrochemical reaction of fuel produces electrons. The electrochemical reaction of oxygen in air consumes electrons. Connecting the two produces the current of usable electrical power. Fuel cells are configured in stacks of individual cells connected in a series. FuelCell Energy’s carbonate stacks have up to 400 cells per stack and produce between 250 kW and 400 kW of power. FuelCell Energy’s standard MW-scale module contains four stacks, nets about 1.4 MW of power, and can make electricity for sites such as universities, hospitals, and data centers. The modular design of fuel cell plants allows them to scale up to a specific site’s energy needs. “One big advantage is they’re quiet,” said Leo. “Since they don’t have a big spinning machine and this big spinning generator, they’re quiet compared to traditional power generation, so you can site them in population centers. We have a 15-MW fuel cell right in the middle of downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut, for example, and that just makes a really good neighbor.” The lack of harmful emissions is also a benefit. Another advantage is that while fuel cells are making electricity, they’re also making heat that can be used to produce hot water or steam, or to drive chilling operations. “That further enhances the sustainability because you get to avoid burning fuel in a boiler, for example, if you can use the heat coming off the fuel cell,” said Leo. Additionally, fuel cells don’t require a lot of maintenance or a large operations staff. “They’re unmanned—we monitor them remotely—and so, they take care of themselves and just generate value,” Leo explained.

Former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who is now a senior policy advisor for the law firm Van Ness Feldman and co-chair of the Natural Allies Leadership Council, is keen on natural gas and believes it is part of the solution to reaching both domestic and global climate goals. “Natural gas in America is not the enemy,” Landrieu said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “The majority of the emissions reductions of the United States in the last 10 years are directly attributed to more natural gas being used and less coal,” she said. Yet, that doesn’t mean Landrieu is opposed to renewable energy. She believes in an “all-of-the-above” strategy. “As natural gas has replaced coal as the number one producer of electricity in this country, our emissions have been reduced substantially, that is, in addition and in collaboration with—in partnership with—the increase in wind [and] the increase in solar,” said Landrieu. There are many reasons to support natural gas, according to Landrieu. For one, America has a lot of it. “We have over a hundred-year supply,” she claimed. “Number two: we have an amazing pipeline infrastructure that can move gas from where we find it to the people that need it,” she added. “But also, what’s so important is natural gas, because it’s relatively inexpensive, we can keep the cost of electricity lower. So, it’s available, it’s plentiful, it’s affordable, and when connected with wind and solar, we can really build a modern and low-emissions electric grid for the country.” Landrieu has a sound basis for her views, having served three terms in the U.S. Senate (1997–2015) where she chaired the prominent Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and she advocated for her home state of Louisiana, which is America’s fourth-largest energy-producing state. Still, Landrieu pushes back when people suggest she only promotes natural gas because Louisiana produces it. “No, I promote natural gas because we produce it, but we also use a lot of it. So, my goal is to keep it plentiful [and] keep the price low and stable,” she said. Another form of energy that Landrieu supports is nuclear power. “Although our coalition doesn’t promote nuclear, we recognize the power of nuclear power. We want to see more nuclear power in this country,” she said. “Nuclear provides about 18% of our electricity—it was about 20—if we could get that up to 25 or even 30%, it would really help. Natural gas can provide a lot, more wind, more solar, and as batteries come along, that’s going to be, I think, the combination we’re looking for.” The Natural Allies Leadership Council calls itself “a coalition of interested stakeholders that recognize the vital role natural gas and its infrastructure must play in the energy mix.” The group says natural gas partnered with renewable energy “can accelerate our path to a clean energy future—ensuring affordability and reliability while reducing carbon emissions domestically and internationally.” Landrieu co-chairs the group with Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who served southern Florida in Congress from 2002 to 2010; Michael Nutter, who served as Philadelphia’s 98th Mayor from 2008 to 2016; and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who served 10 terms in Congress from 2003 to 2023. “We’re talking to Democrats—we’re happy always to talk with Republicans as well—but we’re talking to Democratic leaders and saying, ‘If you want prices low, if you want your people employed, if you want jobs in your community, natural gas is for you.’ And we’re happy to partner with renewables, nuclear, batteries, and let’s build a future together,” said Landrieu.

In 2018, Cooperative Energy, a generation and transmission co-op headquartered in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, had an issue to deal with. Several years earlier, it had joined the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), giving the power provider access to a competitive market. However, Cooperative Energy’s R.D. Morrow Sr. Generating Station, a 400-MW two-unit coal-fired facility that had opened about 40 years earlier, was not being dispatched as the co-op would have liked. In fact, the facility’s capacity factor in those days was running at only about 3%. “We could not compete in the MISO market due to the cost of the unit, the lack of flexibility, [and] startup time—when you’re bidding the unit into a day-ahead market, a 42-hour startup time is not a good place to be,” Mark Smith, senior vice president of Power Generation with Cooperative Energy, explained as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Smith continued: “We had high transportation costs. Our coal came in by rail and the route from the mine to the plant was roughly 440 miles one way. So, the transportation cost was excessive. Environmental regulations—the goal post seems to keep moving and things keep ratcheting down—we didn’t know where we were heading. At the point that we did decommission, we were well within compliance, but the future was uncertain. It was going to require a lot of capital investment in the coal unit.” With that as a backdrop, Cooperative Energy made the decision to build a new gas-fired unit to take the place of the coal units. Cooperative Energy took a somewhat unconventional approach for the project, utilizing many of its own people to manage the job, rather than opting for a turnkey EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) contractor. “There were several reasons for us to choose what we call the multi-contract approach, as opposed to utilizing an EPC contractor,” Trey Cannon, director of Generation Projects with Cooperative Energy, said on the podcast. “Probably the one that was most important to us is just having that full transparency and full control of the entire project, including technology selections and equipment procurement, selection of construction contractors, and things of that nature,” Cannon explained. There was also a cost savings involved. “We estimated that we probably saved at least 15% on the total budget by utilizing the self-build self-manage approach,” said Cannon. The results were phenomenal. The project finished well ahead of schedule and well under budget. Yet, Cannon admitted that a lot of the savings was due to circumstances. “The market conditions and the timing of the project couldn’t have been better,” he said. The market for power plants in 2018 was down, so Cooperative Energy was able to get very competitive pricing on the gas turbine and a lot of other equipment. As construction work kicked into full swing in 2020, the market took another dip with COVID and other factors pushing projects to the back burner. Cooperative Energy, however, pressed on and was able to cherry pick the best contractors and the best workers. To underscore how the project benefited from the quality of personnel it was able to attract, Smith noted, “The weld rejection rate for our mechanical contractor was 0.41%, which was remarkable.” Today, the repowered Morrow plant is the heavy-load-carrying unit in Cooperative Energy’s fleet. “Since we went commercial, I think we’re carrying a 90-plus-percent capacity factor on the unit,” said Cannon. “If it’s not the most-efficient plant in MISO South, it’s very close,” added Smith. “And, needless to say, if the unit is available—we’re not in a planned outage—it’s operating and it’s typically baseloaded. In MISO, the name of the game is flexibility, efficiency, and reliability. The Morrow repower has checked all of those boxes for us and has Cooperative Energy in a great position for many years to come.”

Nuclear power has consistently provided about 19% to 20% of total annual U.S. electricity generation since 1990. It provides significant amounts of electricity in many other countries as well. According to data from The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), a total of 414 reactors were operating in 32 countries, as of July 1, 2024. Preliminary data says China generated the second-most electricity from nuclear power in 2023 (behind the U.S.), while France came in third and had the highest percentage share of national power generation from nuclear power at 65%. Many power industry experts and environmental activists consider nuclear power an important component in the world’s transition to carbon-free energy. Yet, Mycle Schneider, an independent international analyst on energy and nuclear policy, and coordinator, editor, and publisher of the annual WNISR, said, “in [new] capacity terms, the nuclear industry, from what is going on, on the ground, is totally irrelevant.” Schneider was speaking as a guest on The POWER Podcast and prefaced his statement by comparing nuclear power additions to solar power additions in recent years. “Let’s look at China, because China is the only country that has been massively building nuclear power plants over the past 20 years,” he said. “China connected one reactor to the grid in 2023—one gigawatt. In the same year, they connected, and the numbers vary, but over 200 gigawatts of solar alone. Solar power generates more electricity in China than nuclear power since 2022. And, of course, wind power generates more than nuclear power in China for a decade already,” Schneider said. Furthermore, he noted, the disparity has gone “completely unnoticed by the general public or even within the energy professionals that are in Europe or often also in North America.” Schneider said the media often gives the impression that the nuclear industry is booming, but the facts suggest otherwise. “Over the past 20 years—2004 to 2023—104 reactors were closed down and 102 started up,” Schneider said. “But here is important that almost half, 49 of those new reactors started, were in China [where none closed], so the balance outside China is minus 51.” Some nuclear advocates might suggest that things are changing. They might argue that small modular reactors (SMRs) or other advanced designs are poised to reinvigorate the industry. But Schneider disagrees. He noted that since the construction start of the second unit at Hinkley Point C in the UK in 2019—almost five years ago—there have been 35 nuclear project construction starts in the world. Twenty-two of those were in China and the other 13 were all implemented by the Russian nuclear industry in a few different countries. “Nothing else. Not an SMR here or an SMR there, or a large reactor here or a large reactor there by any other player,” reported Schneider. Schneider noted that the vast majority of new capacity being added to the grid is from solar and wind energy. “These guys are building tens of thousands of wind turbines, and literally hundreds of millions of solar cells, so the learning effect is just absolutely stunning,” he said. “On the nuclear side, we’re talking about a handful. That’s very difficult. Very, very difficult—very challenging—to have a learning effect with so few units.” Schneider said the nuclear discussion in general needs a “really thorough reality check.” He suggested the possibilities and feasibilities must be investigated. “Then, choices can be made on a solid basis,” he said.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports SAIDI and SAIFI values in its Electric Power Annual report, which is regularly released in October each year. In the most recent report, the U.S. distribution system’s average SAIDI value including all events was 335.5 minutes per customer in 2022. If major event days were excluded, which is often a worthwhile exercise to get accurate long-term trends because hurricanes and severe winter storms, for example, can skew the numbers quite dramatically in a given year, the figure dropped to 125.7 minutes per customer. Notably, this the highest SAIDI value tallied in the past decade and it continued what has effectively been a steady year-over-year decline in performance from 2013 through 2022. (2017 saw a brief improvement over 2016, but every year before and since has been worse than the previous year during the timespan covered by the report.) For comparison, in 2013, the SAIDI value was 106.1 minutes per customer. SAIFI values do not vary as noticeably as SAIDI, but still have been worsening. In 2022, the U.S. distribution system’s average SAIFI value including all events was 1.4 power interruptions per customer. With major events excluded, SAIFI was 1.1 interruptions per customer in the U.S. While this was not substantially worse than values reported in other years over the past decade (every year from 2013 onward has been 1.0, except for 2016 when the value was also 1.1), it seems to confirm that the system hasn’t been improving. Yet, Mike Edmonds, Chief Operating Officer for S&C Electric Company, said several things can be done to improve the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution system. “The grid looks different depending on what state you’re in,” Edmonds said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “We’ve got great experience with Florida Power & Light [FPL],” he said. “We’ve helped them create a resilient grid. So, that’s not only a grid that is reliable, but a grid that can actually weather the storms and all the challenges thrown at the grid.” Notably, FPL reported in March that it had provided “the most reliable electric service in company history in 2023.” Over the past two decades, FPL said its customers have realized a remarkable 45% improvement in reliability. In NextEra Energy’s (the parent company of FPL) Sustainability Report 2023, the company reported FPL’s SAIDI was 47.1 and SAIFI was 0.85, confirming markedly better results than the U.S. averages noted earlier. Furthermore, FPL said this is the ninth time in the past 10 years that it achieved “its best-ever reliability rating.” To better understand some of the innovative new equipment S&C Electric Company offers, Edmonds provided an example. “We have some technology that does something called ‘pulse finding,’ and what Florida Power & Light does, it just lets our equipment do what it does best. If there’s a problem, it’ll pulse to see if the problem is there or not on the grid, if it’s not, it reenergizes,” he said. “This technology is available to really change how the grid operates.” Edmonds said S&C Electric Company invented the fuse 115 years ago, and he noted fuses have served the industry well since that time. However, today there is better technology available that doesn’t require a lineworker to respond to an outage to replace a fuse. “Let’s take fuses off the grid and have a fuseless grid, and have much more intelligent devices that can actually re-energize,” Edmonds decreed.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, while speaking at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in Nashville, Tennessee, in April, warned that U.S. critical infrastructure is a prime target of the Chinese government. “The fact is, the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] targeting of our critical infrastructure is both broad and unrelenting,” he said. Wray also noted that the immense size and expanding nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s hacking program isn’t just aimed at stealing American intellectual property. “It’s using that mass, those numbers, to give itself the ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing,” he said. Wray noted that during the FBI’s recent Volt Typhoon investigation, the Bureau found that the Chinese government had gained illicit access to networks within America’s “critical telecommunications, energy, water, and other infrastructure sectors.” Some cybersecurity experts have likened this activity to an act of war, although NATO hasn’t defined it as such just yet. In any case, it is a serious threat to national security. “In this country, critical infrastructure is operated by the private sector, most of which are publicly traded companies,” said Alex Santos, CEO of Fortress Information Security, a company that specializes in cyber supply chain security for organizations that operate critical infrastructure including utilities and government agencies. Santos was speaking as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “Somehow, the private sector has taken on the responsibility to defend these acts of war, which I was always taught is the responsibility of the government,” he said. “I think what’s really the point here is that the government is asking us to do more. We’re being attacked more by the adversaries. Regulations are coming in. It’s becoming more and more complicated with technology change. And, our budgets are being cut,” said Santos. Thus, while Wray can be commended for pointing out the national security problem Chinese hackers present to critical infrastructure, his words fall flat if the government doesn’t put its money where its mouth is, Santos suggested. That’s not to say money isn’t being spent by the U.S. government. “The government is spending a lot on cybersecurity to help companies, but it’s going to research and universities,” Santos said. “How many research studies do we need to tell us that cybersecurity is a problem? How many research studies do we need to tell us that we don’t have enough cybersecurity workers? How much research do we need to give us 10 recommendations for how to increase the capability of our cybersecurity workforce? At some point, we need to actually do the work.” Santos suggested money could be better spent helping companies repair vulnerabilities or by getting small businesses to install basic security precautions like endpoint protection and network monitoring. “Does the government study how to build a tank or do they build tanks?” Santos asked rhetorically. “The government builds tanks and they buy bullets,” he answered. “So, think of it that way. We need to buy more tanks and bullets, and less research studies on which tanks, how many tanks, what kind of tanks—tanks with wheels, tanks with tracks—you know, let’s buy some tanks,” he said.

The power industry has long been lamenting its aging workforce. While turnover has been happening for years, there remains a large percentage of power professionals on the verge of retirement. Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts faster than average job growth for engineering occupations. That means experienced workers with the skills needed by the power industry are in high demand and can be choosy when looking for new opportunities. They can also demand higher compensation to make a change. Meanwhile, relative youngsters coming out of college and trade schools, while often having the fundamental knowledge to do power jobs, don’t usually have the experience needed to add immediate value to an organization. The situation is forcing companies to implement workforce development strategies. Mechanical Dynamics & Analysis (MD&A) is a company that offers a full-service alternative to original equipment manufacturer services, parts, and repairs for steam, gas, and industrial turbines and generators. Like other power industry companies, MD&A has found it challenging to recruit experienced engineers. “When we started out back in the early 80s, we started out as a company who tended to hire engineers who were very experienced. And back around 2009, we started to realize that those people were becoming a little harder to find,” Charles Monestere, general manager for Technical Services with MD&A, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “So, we started hiring a few engineers a year—some years one person, some years two or three people, maybe even a little bit more—and we developed an in-house program where we would bring in generally recent graduates, within a year or two or three out of school, and put them through some classroom training, but then a structured on-the-job training where we would have weekly meetings reviewing the activities on the job sites,” he explained. “And we’d put the young engineers with very experienced project managers and technical directors that are at the sites—the field engineers who have been doing this for many years.” Called the Engineers in Training (EIT) program, the instruction tasked learners with becoming proficient at and gaining knowledge on many different technical aspects of the job. “A good part of the work is on the job sites; however, there is some structured classroom training, which is integrated into it,” Monestere said. In recent years, finding experienced people has become even more difficult, leading MD&A to increase its hiring into the EIT program. “We’re actually targeting about 10 people a year now,” said Monestere. “We’re just hiring in five more this summer, and then, probably another five or so at the end of the year. So, that’s the direction we’re heading.” Colin Baker, one of MD&A’s newest field engineers, participated in the program and found it very worthwhile. “Working with all these really great and really smart engineers, you get all of their experience firsthand, and you learn what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said. “Also, with all these classes that you’re put through, you use all of that knowledge and you learn where to apply it when you’re actually out in the field.” Meanwhile, Baker said the program also offered him an opportunity to network within the industry and in the company. Baker said he now has multiple experts he can contact when he runs into problems. “Especially with MD&A, you can always reach out to anyone for help. Everyone is pretty much readily available for any kind of questions or something of that matter,” he said. “I’m still very new in the industry and I’m not going to know everything. I know people who do know most things, so it’s good to get these kinds of resources.”

Wildfires have had a devastating impact on California and on the state’s largest utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). Potential wildfire liabilities exceeding $30 billion led PG&E to file for bankruptcy in January 2019. The company emerged from bankruptcy on July 1, 2020, with a renewed focus on mitigating wildfires within its 70,000-square-mile service territory in northern and central California. “A lot has changed,” Andy Abranches, senior director of Wildfire Preparedness and Operations with PG&E, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “We really saw the devastation that could occur from these wildfires, and so, that was the point that PG&E started really making a big pivot to addressing the wildfire risk. The way we address the wildfire risk is really through what we consider our layers of protection. We started initially learning as much as we could from San Diego Gas and Electric [SDG&E], and put in place the public safety power shutoff program.” High-fire-threat district maps were important in understanding risks. About half of PG&E’s service territory falls in high-fire-threat areas. “We have 25,000 distribution miles that run through the high-fire-threat districts and 5,000 transmission miles,” said Abranches. Vegetation plays a critical role in the risk, and while precisely quantifying the number of trees in and around those risky transmission and distribution lines is difficult, Abranches estimated it’s in the range of eight to 10 million. With such a large area and so many trees to monitor, PG&E turned to Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions, for help. Planet’s satellite-derived data on vegetation, including canopy height, cover, and proximity to electric-system infrastructure, is used by PG&E to prioritize the mitigation of vegetation-associated risks. Quantifying Threats and Consequences Abranches explained PG&E’s risk characterization process by likening it to a bowtie. “The first part of your risk bowtie is: ‘How do you quantify and in a probabilistic way build a risk model to predict ignitions are going to happen?’ ” He noted that the biggest source of ignitions is through contact with vegetation, such as a tree falling on a line or a branch coming into contact with a line on a windy day, but birds and other animals can also cause ignitions. “The second half of the bowtie is the consequence,” said Abranches. “If an ignition occurs at a particular location, if the vegetation around it is just not there, that ignition will never spread.” The fire triangle requires heat (or a spark), oxygen, and fuel. The fuel is the vegetation bed around the line where the ignition event occurs. If there happens to be a lot of dry fuel, that’s when an ignition becomes a wildfire. Depending on the oxygen, which can be heavily influenced by wind conditions, it could become a catastrophic fire, Abranches explained. “As we built our risk models, you needed to understand the vegetation dimension on two levels. One level is for probability of ignitions: ‘How do we get better at predicting where we expect vegetation ignitions to occur?’ And the data that we’re able to get from Planet every year helps improve and keeps those models updated,” said Abranches. “The second piece of it is the consequence of the ignition—understanding the fuel layer. That also—data from Planet—helps inform and continually refreshes that information to make sure it’s most current. So, the risk model actually uses the Planet data on both sides of the bowtie, because it’s probability of ignition times the consequence of ignition gives you the risk event.”