The Abridged version:
- A dozen power outages have hit the Capay Valley in the last two weeks.
- Residents say the outages have lasted for hours and disrupted daily life.
- Pacific Gas & Electric said that it is working on identifying the causes of the outages in the valley but that some were related to equipment failures or fallen tree branches.
As summer heat bears down on Yolo County, residents in the rural Capay Valley have found themselves contending with frequent, hourslong power outages.
Twenty-five-year valley resident John Capitanio said his electricity, provided by Pacific Gas & Electric, has gone out seven times in the last two weeks, totaling more than 42 hours without power in 10 days.
Even when the power is on, “people are just waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he said.
In total, the Capay Valley’s circuit has experienced 12 power outages in the last two weeks, PG&E spokesperson Paul Moreno said in an emailed statement.
“PG&E is working hard to address power reliability in the Capay Valley,” he said. “The number of power outages is not acceptable to us either and we are analyzing and working hard to identify potential causes so that we can improve power reliability.”
The frequency of the outages has disrupted daily life in the heavily agricultural corner of Yolo County.
At best, some residents are spending more on propane for their generators. At worst, those without a backup power source head to the volunteer fire station in Guinda, which has been set up as a cooling center with cooking facilities, Wi-Fi and showers.
“People come and go as they need,” said Capitanio, who is one of the volunteers at the cooling center.
Looking for answers
This is not the first time residents in the Capay Valley have dealt with power outages.
Capitanio said that two summers ago it felt like “every other day the power would go out.”
When it does, PG&E notifies residents that it is working on identifying a cause.
But Capitanio has found that answers come slowly.
“Oftentimes what we get is a generic statement,” he said. “Not that knowing would make it any better.”
Of the dozen outages over the last two weeks, Moreno said causes included a tree falling into power lines, a bird causing a fault on overhead equipment, a vehicle striking a pole, transformer issues and broken overhead equipment. A cause has not been found for the remaining outages, and the company has not found damage to explain their occurrences.
Wildfire safety program
The Capay Valley is part of a program that PG&E calls Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings.
To help prevent wildfires caused by electrical infrastructure, the company uses technology that shuts off power lines when it detects potential hazards like tree branches.
“It’s there to protect people,” Moreno said. “It’s been a very effective program.”
During the summer months, when wildfire risk in places like the Capay Valley is higher, PG&E employees do a daily evaluation of conditions and increase sensitivity based on what they find.
Jesse Capitanio, fire chief for the Capay Valley Fire Protection District, said the safety sensors can be set off by things like high winds and birds.
“There are a number of things that trip those settings,” he said.
When the lines are then shut off, workers from PG&E need to make the 45-minute trip from Woodland to inspect the entire circuit before turning it back on.
“They’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” the fire chief said.
That means that power can be out for hours at a time, leaving residents without things like air conditioning, internet and phone service.
“911 becomes a little bit more difficult to access,” Jesse Capitanio said.
As a result, the fire station’s cooling center has become an important resource for some in the community.
But it’s also not set up to meet an ongoing, increased need.
The station has a generator, so it can run one window air conditioning unit.
Local organizations have applied to PG&E’s resilience hub grant program to bolster the cooling center’s operations, but Jesse Capitanio said they have been turned down twice.
Moreno said that PG&E is working on burying power lines systemwide and strengthening those that remain aboveground. As that work progresses, he said the need for safety settings will decrease.