PG&E seeks accelerated overhead maintenance, pole replacement and a new two‑way new‑business balancing account

PG&E told the CPUC Energy Division it is requesting $2,100,000,000 in electric distribution expense and $6,700,000,000 in capital for the 2027 test year, with significant funding focused on vegetation management, overhead asset maintenance and pole replacement. Shannon Yuan, PG&E’s Exhibit 4 case manager, said nearly half of the expense request is for vegetation management and that capital increases are driven by overhead maintenance and pole work needed to meet heightened inspection results and wildfire safety obligations.

Yuan said PG&E proposes to accelerate work to close about 800,000 overdue electric corrective (EC) maintenance tags by the end of 2030, including replacing roughly 200,000 poles or performing pole reinforcement. The company told the workshop it plans to clear 80,000–92,000 capital EC maintenance units per year starting in 2027 to meet this objective.

To address rising customer connection demand, PG&E proposed a new two‑way balancing account for new business capital to record and return any unspent funds to customers promptly. Yuan said PG&E forecasts more than 16,000 new business connections annually through 2030 and argued the two‑way account will help the utility meet statutory energization timelines when actual connection volumes differ from forecasts.

Yuan also presented programs intended to support electrification growth, including a new Capacity Bridging Solutions program using redeployable battery energy storage systems (BESS) as temporary capacity to accelerate customer energization and a 4 kV conversion program targeted at older distribution circuits in the Bay Area and Peninsula. PG&E described these as capacity‑management proposals intended to enable faster service to customers while larger permanent upgrades proceed.

All proposals were presented as requested items in the GRC and will be subject to formal CPUC review.