SDG&E Fire Risk Mitigation Program (FiRM) Owner’s Engineering Services
● Since 2014, the EPI team has been providing owner’s engineering services for SDG&E’s numerous wildfire mitigation programs including FiRM, Cross-Arm Remediation, Private LTE as well as other overhead distribution projects. This includes program development services, engineering and design quality reviews, and document control services. Our team has developed and documented processes, procedures, and performance metrics for engineering and design ensuring construction packages meet GO95, SDG&E standards, and program expectations for overhead, underground, and SCADA jobs.
● EPI facilitates and manages the construction RFI process, coordinates with the utility’s Electrical Design Engineering group to discuss standards updates or deviations, provides recommendations to SDG&E for program direction, provides technical direction and QA/QC for post construction true up and true-up remediation processes, and develops explicit scope of work for contract designers.
SDG&E Strategic Undergrounding (SUG) Owner’s Engineering Services
In 2020, SDG&E updated its Wildfire Mitigation Plan which included initiatives in the strategic undergrounding of overhead power lines. Our team has successfully developed and published technical program direction to ensure a consistent design product meeting the utility’s technical and construction standards from five engineering and design firms. To date, our team has performed quality reviews of over 80 miles of conversion work. EPI has proposed and executed numerous initiatives that resulted in significant schedule improvements and program cost reductions while maintaining safety and infrastructure reliability.
Extra Facts:
● The FiRM program was prompting the need for multiple easements which delayed the schedule and increased costs. EPI developed a process to review for and train designers on reducing the number of easements. This saved our client the cost and time of acquiring hundreds of easements per year.
● EPI worked with the client to develop cost savings measures which totaled over $100k per mile by reducing redundant survey scope.