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.
