PG&E New-Service Customers to Benefit from State Law That Boosts Grid Connections

A new state law is poised to make a major difference in new-service customer connections at PG&E.

The Powering Up Californians Act will help PG&E connect more than 2,000 new customers to the electric grid in 2024 compared with 2023, when the company connected more than 11,000 new customers.

"Our goal is simple: We will serve every new-business customer who is capable of being served in 2024," said Matt Ventura, senior director of Service Planning & Design at PG&E. "We're excited to help accelerate California's electrification efforts, and to contribute to regional and local economic development by connecting new housing and growing businesses to our grid."

Based on the new law, the California Public Utilities Commission in July voted to allow PG&E to invest up to $2.3 billion through 2026 to energize new projects. That's on top of $2.5 billion in company revenue already designated for new-service connections.

The commission will review spending to ensure it is just and reasonable before it affects electric rates. Spending the full $2.3 billion would result in less than a 1% annual systemwide bill increase.

Adding thousands of new connections to the grid should help lower electric rates over time, as fixed grid operations and maintenance costs are spread across more customers.

A companion law set reasonable average target time periods for new-service connections, with mandated reporting for utilities that fall short and third-party audits of costs.

"These laws strike a balance between providing needed resources and keeping PG&E accountable for our new-business performance," Ventura said. "We appreciate the efforts of California's lawmakers and utility regulators to create this nimbler funding structure, which will help us meet surging electric demand across our service area."

Members of the building industry praised the new law and the commission's decision.

"The Powering Up Californians Act funding is critical to help meet the needs of California's extreme housing shortage by giving PG&E the ability to energize more new homes and communities without delay," said California Building Industry Association President and CEO Dan Dunmoyer.

Incident Management Team takes the lead

To focus the enhanced new-service effort, PG&E has set up an Incident Management Team-a centralized organization that mobilizes coworkers from across the company to respond to emergencies or key issues.

The team meets daily to monitor progress, solve issues and ensure we deliver for customers.

Between the new funding and the streamlined processes of the Incident Management Team, Ventura said PG&E will be able to serve 30% more customers in 2024 than in 2023.

The team is in the process of identifying all customers who want to be connected to the grid in 2024 and has already identified more than 5,000 customers who weren't going to get service in 2024, who now will through the new effort.

"These customers include apartment communities, new-home developments, expanding businesses, data centers and EV charging stations-the types of new projects we need to meet both the state's housing goals and its ambitious clean-energy targets," said Steven Fischer, senior director of Service Planning & Design and leader of the Incident Management Team. "We look forward to serving these new customers."

Additional improvements

The added funding and streamlined response follow more than a year's worth of industry collaboration to enhance PG&E's new-service connections.

In July 2023, the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the California Building Industry Association to partner on improving new-service connections.

The MOU established an Advisory Committee and a Technical Working Committee to help meet four key commitments.

PG&E has met three of those commitments:

• Advance construction scheduling, to schedule connection work as soon as customers pay their contract, rather than waiting to schedule until after all permits are in and sites are construction-ready.
• Centralized support, to set up a dedicated team of experienced leaders and job owners with monthly forums to escalate issues for the applicant-designers who design interconnections for customers tying into PG&E's system.
• Interim power solutions, to allow developers to use temporary arrangements to bridge gaps if there's a delay between the requested in-service date and PG&E's in-service date.

The fourth commitment outlined in the MOU is to launch a pilot program that may support a tariff change to allow developers to hire PG&E-approved contractors for electrical tie-in work. That work is now limited to authorized PG&E crews.

The pilot program requires approval by the California Public Utilities Commission. The agency's review process is expected to be complete by early 2025.

The PG&E-CBIA collaboration has already led to marked improvements in new-service connections.

PG&E's 11,000-plus connections in 2023 were up from roughly 9,000 connections in 2022 despite historic storms in the first quarter of 2023 that delayed nearly 1,500 new connections.

The team in 2023 also recorded a 30% reduction in the backlog of work in process within design and savings of $24 million while decreasing average end-to-end lead time by 50 days, or 13%.

"We're pleased with the progress we've made working with our industry partners," Ventura said. "We know we have more work to do. We're ready to tackle that work with the resources available as a result of this new legislation."

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