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Wildfire safety
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Climate resilience
PG&E works to be resilient to the physical risks of climate change, which can threaten the safety and reliability of the energy system, and the safety of our customers.
Our approach
Adapting to these changing risks involves understanding the impacts of climate change on our business, coworkers, customers, and the communities we serve. It also means being prepared to withstand and rapidly recover from major disruptions in service caused by climate-driven weather events. PG&E’s commitment is to continue providing safe, reliable, affordable, and clean energy service even as the climate conditions we operate in become more challenging.
Our commitment to climate resilience is embedded in our cross-functional approach, which engages leadership from key departments across the business in a structured manner. Through PG&E’s Lean operating system, climate resilience priorities can be raised daily, weekly, and monthly at cross-departmental operating review meetings. More broadly, climate change is a cross-cutting risk factor across our strategic planning process and enterprise risk modeling efforts.
Assessing physical climate risk
In 2024, PG&E published our first Climate Adaptation and Vulnerability Assessment (CAVA), which documents physical climate risk to PG&E’s assets, infrastructure, operations, and service. The assessment reviewed climate change vulnerabilities and identified climate change risks, while integrating feedback from communities into potential adaptation and resilience measures. The report provides the foundation for prioritized adaptive action to the growing impacts of a changing climate.
To inform our assessment, PG&E partnered with trusted community members to design and implement outreach to designated disadvantaged and vulnerable communities in effective, respectful, and culturally appropriate ways.
Key findings
Changes in environmental conditions and extreme weather are projected to continue creating a more challenging environment in which PG&E operates—presenting direct and indirect risks to PG&E’s assets and operations, as shown in the chart.
2024 milestones
- Supported the development of industry-wide best practices as a technical advisor for Climate READi. This Electric Power Research Institute initiative resulted in a new industry standard for integrating climate data and analysis into electric system planning and conducting climate vulnerability assessments.
- Participated in the CPUC’s Climate Adaptation Rulemaking process and two associated workshops. A new CPUC ruling established the guidelines and requirements for how future CAVAs should use climate change projections in utility investment planning and long-term electric grid analysis. The workshops focused on refining the process for utilities to gather feedback from climate-vulnerable communities and how that feedback may influence future utility planning and climate adaptation efforts.
PG&E launched a climate-informed design guidance initiative for all electric asset categories, which involves updating design standards and engineering guidance for new assets. This was a key recommendation from our CAVA and a critical step toward cost-effectively building increased resilience to more extreme weather impacts from a changing climate.
In 2024, PG&E reviewed all electric design standards and climate change projections to identify the assets to be updated in the coming years. Through this effort, PG&E is planning for future operating conditions and working to ensure that investments made today support a resilient and safe energy system.
Helping to build local climate resilience
The Resilience Hubs grant program helps communities build a network of local hubs to build community resilience to climate-driven extreme weather events.
In 2024, PG&E awarded four Feasibility Project grants of $25,000 each, to fund an assessment of resilience hub needs and conceptual ideas for a resilience hub:
- A. Philip Randolph Institute, San Francisco
- California Interfaith Power & Light
- Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities
- Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries
Additionally, PG&E awarded three Design and Build Project grants of $100,000 each, toward the design or creation of a resilience hub, either planning and design of new physical spaces or mobile resources, or retrofits of existing buildings or structures to support community resilience:
Highlight
PG&E’s remote grid program received an honorable mention in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. Remote grids operate independently from the larger electric grid, and they allow PG&E to remove overhead powerlines, significantly reducing wildfire risk and service interruptions.