Multiple Outages Plague North Lassen County

Outages have plagued North Lassen County throughout August. Homes around Bieber, Nubieber, and McArthur have experienced six power outages this month alone. The area is served by PG&E, which says there is no known cause for each outage but responds that the company is looking for ways to improve reliability. PG&E, through high fire-threat areas, as part of their wildfire prevention measures for this year, has increased Enhanced Power Line Safety Settings (EPSS). This causes a line to shut off within 1/10th of a second if a fault is detected. Once shut off, PG&E crews patrol most or all of the circuits before restoring power to ensure an incident does not exist, such as a downed power line or tree branches in power lines. A PG&E representative has said in efforts to improve reliability thus far; the company is adjusting settings on equipment to limit outages (unless there is a risk of wildfire), installing technology to identify outage locations more quickly, and managing vegetation near powerlines to reduce future hazards.