Comment by hedora
1 year ago
Nope. Rural customers are not the issue. I can confirm they don't maintain rural lines, and they charge 5 figures for 2-3 hours of labor in rural areas, just like in the city.
Even if they were adequately servicing rural areas, that wouldn't be the root cause. If it was, then power would be more expensive in completely rural states than it is in California.
There was a lot of well-documented corruption decades ago (remember when an entire residential block exploded because they used to falsify line maintenance records and move the money into their personal accounts?) I doubt it's improved since then, and I'm pretty sure that's the root cause.
Rural customers are the ones serviced by lines close to trees, which are the ones that are sparking forest fires during hot dry summers.
Power lines cause plenty of forest fires in rural states as well. But the money involved is probably very different, and Californians are bilked for higher rates simply because they are richer than someone in Idaho or Wyoming.
If you don't maintain power lines, then they'll eventually cause fires regardless of where they are.
PG&E employees were caught skimming the money for line maintenance. At this point, the whole grid is falling apart.
The power poles in our area have over 20 degree bends in them, and are nearly as old as I am. Last year, we had dozens of trees take out the single digit mile line between ourselves and the freeway, and PG&E's availability was barely one nine. It used to make news if our area had a power outage over 12 hours. Now, it doesn't make news if the outage is under a week.
Other states in the US do not have problems like this. (Puerto Rico does, but it's not a state.)