Opinion: How PG&E is working every day to win customer trust

It has been just over a year since I left my home state of Michigan to become the CEO of PG&E. I came for one reason: to help this company make it right and make it safe for the people it serves.

I had no illusions about the scale of the challenge. I knew we were on federal probation for the 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno. I knew our history of devastating wildfires. I knew that fundamental changes were necessary.

Last month, as our federal probation came to an end, the presiding judge said that he has yet to see such changes and portrayed PG&E using harshly critical terms. I take the judge’s opinions as genuine expressions of the pain and frustration that many Californians feel toward PG&E, and I take them to heart.

But such characterizations of my 40,000 coworkers and contract partners are wrong. The people of PG&E get up every day to serve their neighbors. Many have lived in California for generations. They come to work for the same reason that I do — to deliver an essential service that makes life better for all the people and places that we cherish.

What’s also wrong is the assumption that PG&E has not changed or is not capable of change. The truth is we are not the same company as we were a year ago, either structurally or culturally.

Since mid-2020, we have replaced our board and management team. These new leaders were recruited from strong utilities across the country, bringing deep experience at all levels of our industry.

We changed the operating DNA of our company in 2021, introducing a system of daily, data-driven check-ins to raise and resolve issues quickly, across the company. We’ve assembled five new regional teams to better tailor our services to the unique needs of our hometowns.

We’ve invested billions of dollars to meet our major wildfire mitigation commitments, including tree trimming work, inspections, system hardening and repairs. We’re using Public Safety Power Shutoffs more surgically, affecting far fewer customers while still preventing fire ignitions during dry, windy conditions. In 2021, about 80,000 customers experienced a PSPS event, down from more than 650,000 in 2020.

Last July, we re-engineered about half of our electric circuits in high fire-threat areas to detect potential risks of sparks more quickly, and automatically shut off power to prevent potential ignitions. Amid record drought conditions, these adjustments reduced ignitions on those sections of powerlines by 80% compared to previous years, the largest reduction we have achieved since we began tracking them.

This year, 100% of our powerlines in high fire-threat areas will have these capabilities. And we’re not stopping there in our commitment to end catastrophic wildfires. In the coming years, we’re reimagining the electric system for the climate we live in by burying 10,000 miles of powerlines. We will share more specifics, including year-by-year mileage goals, later this month.

Our customers should know that we are not standing idly by — we are working every day to make our energy system safer, and we’re making progress. Yes, there is much more to do; it will take time and will take partnership with our communities and state.

We know that we can only earn back your trust the hard way — day by day, block by block, mile by mile. I, and all the men and women of PG&E, are in it for the duration. And we will not stop until we have made it right and made it safe.

Patti Poppe is CEO of PG&E.